


Finding Our Way Back

by xxashleyxx



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: AND I MEAN ANGRY, Alex/Mon-El Friendship, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Angry Kara, Angst, Angst and Feels, Bunker Sex, Coma, Confused Mon-El, Cunnilingus, Event Recall, F/M, Flashbacks, Floor Sex, Happy Ending, Heavy Angst, Hiding Feelings, I MEAN ANGST GUYS, Implied Kara/OC Sex, Kara has a new boyfriend, KaraMel, KaraMel Ending, Locked in a Bunker, Memories, Misunderstandings, Non-Descriptive Non-Karamel Sex, Oral Sex, Overanalyzing, Post Star-Crossed, Post-Break Up, Pre 2x17, Pre Distant Sun, Quite a Bit of Emotional Torture, Regrets, Sad Mon-El, Sick Mon-El, Temporary Amnesia, jealous kara, lead poisoning, medically induced coma, my apologies, post 2x16, rug sex, sad kara, time jumps, worried kara
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-11-15 11:23:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 39,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11229927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxashleyxx/pseuds/xxashleyxx
Summary: "It had been almost two months and he wasn’t getting any better. Her eyes were wide as she sat there staring at him. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know how to help him." -- Kara and Mon-El break up in 2x16: Star-Crossed and the Music Meister never pushes them back together. After an incident with his mother, Mon-El has been put into a coma to recover from lead poisoning. Kara moves on without him. When he wakes up, will they be able to find their way back to each other?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> Prepare yourselves because this author's note is about to be WAY too long, but I feel like I've been writing this fic forever and it needs a proper introduction.
> 
> I saw a prompt on Twitter back in April (?) and I had to give it a try (if it was your prompt, msg me on Twitter because I can't even remember where it came from!). What was supposed to be a steamy one shot with some angst quickly (over the course of two months...oops) took on a life of it's own and became a way too long angst-fest.
> 
> Normally, I'd link or write in the prompt details, BUT after thinking about it for a while, I've decided that it might actually give a little too much of the plot away too soon. So, I'd like to ask that you all just come along for the ride with me. Those of you who've known I've been working on this, keep the prompt spoilers to yourselves ;)
> 
> I have to preface this fic with a statement: KARA IS ANGRY. A lot of her decisions in this fic are fueled by anger. We didn't get to see all that much of her anger on the show because the Music Meister came in to distract us all and Kara quickly came to realize that she should forgive Mon-El. Here, the MM doesn't arrive, Kara doesn't have the epiphany she had on the show and she has to figure it all out for herself.
> 
> There's going to be angst. There's going to be Kara with another man. There's going to be moments where you might be yelling at your screen as you read, telling Karamel to just get their shit together already. But it's all a part of the story. You're going to be angry at the both of them (possibly a little upset with me), but stick with me. There's a happy (and quite smutty) ending, I promise.
> 
> We're going to spend a lot of time in Kara and Mon-El's heads. There's going to be a lot of flashbacks. Basically everything that happened in 2x16: Star-Crossed has happened, but anything else you need to know will be seen in flashbacks and memories.
> 
> Now, this fic is a long one BUT HAVE NO FEAR, IT IS COMPLETED. I've written everything out already and will VERY LIKELY not change a thing (regardless of comments you guys leave, unfortunately) as I've already done all the editing, but please don't let that stop you from leaving comments guessing what's coming next. I love to see where my words take you guys!
> 
> Now that I've gone ON AND ON AND ON, if you're still reading, I'd like to thank you all for reading my fics and leaving such lovely comments here, on FF.net and on Twitter (@_ashleymaria_). I have a full time job, run an eBay business from home, have a family and friends and fandoms to keep up with and I'm really just so busy. But with all the general craziness of life, it's so nice to come to a place where everyone can enjoy a ship (and selfishly) praise me for my writing quality...something that I see myself as NOWHERE close to being a professional at...about characters that I just truly enjoy. All your kind words and love, even just an "I love it" and "thank you for writing" mean so much.
> 
> Anyways, now that I'm all teary and grateful for you all, ON TO THE FIC ALREADY.

**Chapter One**

_June 1, 2017_

She sniffled. She was _so scared_. She was really freaking angry, but she was still scared.

It had all happened so fast; before she even realized what was happening to him.

She wasn’t supposed to feel this way. She was mad at him. _She broke up with him_. It was her choice to end it. She made him leave her apartment.

_It was late. She wasn’t expecting him to be there. She wasn’t ready to see him. She hadn’t even noticed he was there, not until he spoke; his voice echoing in her quiet apartment, surprising her while simultaneously jabbing like a knife into her heart._

_“I hope you don’t mind I let myself in.”_

_She dropped the pile of mail in her hands onto the table top in silence._

_“I just wanted to say a few things,” he started, turning around, moving away from the window and stepping closer to her, “before I lose you forever.” She crossed her arms as she looked over at him. “Because, I owe you a lot, but most of all, I owe you the truth.” When she didn’t speak, he continued, clearly steeling himself; preparing for her to react, for her to throw him out, for her to refuse to listen._

_“My name is Mon-El. I am the former Prince of Daxam. And I was a spoiled, useless person, but I didn’t know. Until I met you. I love being a hero because it means I get to spend every single day by your side. And I love the way that you’re honest to a fault,” he cracked a smile and it made her angry. She just watched him, glared at him as he stepped as close as he could get. “And that you fight for those you care for. And I love you.” It came out on a whisper and she couldn’t stop her sharp intake of breath; listening but trying to make herself ignore how the words sounded, how they made her feel. “With everything that I have, I love you. You are so special.”_

_He had tears in his red-rimmed eyes and his lip was starting to tremble, but she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t say that it was okay. She couldn’t forget that he lied. She couldn’t let herself feel the emotions his words brought up._

_“I know that. I deserve better than being lied to.”_

_“You do,” he insisted, “and I--I am sorry for that. You’re right, okay? I’m a liar and I really hope that you can still see the good in me. Please.”_

_He had one chance. She removed her glasses and turned to him._

_“Were you ever going to tell me the truth?”_

_It took him a moment but, “I don’t know,” he shook his head._

And that did it. That’s what made her decision easy. She couldn’t be with someone who would keep such a big secret. A secret that he didn’t even choose to reveal himself. A secret that he may _never_ have chosen to reveal. She needed honesty. She needed truth. And she needed him to leave. She couldn’t even look at him anymore without feeling the heat of the fire of rage that had so quickly built up inside of her.

But now, she would do anything to have him open his eyes. To have his gray irises shine brightly up at her like they used to.

She replayed the moment over and over in her head. She had been doing so for the last month and a half, while she sat on the stool next to his bed in the DEO med bay. His eyes. His tears. His cracked voice. His confession. His confession that days before would have been the best, most fulfilling thing to hear come from his lips. But what happened, had happened. It changed things. It changed what she thought of him.

_“You just want things to be easy, Mon-El, but being a hero and falling in love, those are not easy things. They’re hard and they’re messy and they hurt sometimes.”_

_“I would never hurt you on purpose,” he insisted._

_“No, you won’t again.”_

_“Kara, don’t,” he pleaded, the tears almost crossing the waterline of his eyes._

_“I can’t,” she said. “I can’t do this. No. It’s over.”_

And he didn’t say anything. She broke him. She could see it, but it was killing her, too. She didn’t _want_ him to leave, but it was too hard to try to make it work if he stayed. She wasn’t ready to take that chance on him again. As she sat here now watching his face, she still wasn’t sure if she was ready to give him another chance.

She didn’t regret her decision to end things, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t scared for him. She was mad at him for lying. Still _so_ mad. But some part inside of her was dying over him being so sick and in trouble.

If he opened his eyes right now, would she take him back? Not likely. She was still angry as all hell, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t worried about him. That she wasn’t concerned for his health; for his wellbeing.

She felt partially responsible after all. She was the one who gave him the unsolicited advice to go talk to his mother. Rhea had been trying for almost a month to get him to return to New Daxam; to start fresh; to gather their people back together and to create a new, better, stronger world. She was full of anger and nastiness.

He didn’t want to go. _“You’re being a baby,”_ she had told him. She wanted him to tell Rhea that he was needed on Earth; that he was going to be a hero for the people here. She told him that he was being stupid and immature and that he should just talk to his own damn mother. He had told her it was a bad idea; that his mother was dangerous, deadly. She had laughed in his face and he’d looked at her dejected, almost embarrassed. She offered the Fortress of Solitude as a meeting place for the discussion; a safe zone for their inevitable argument. She didn’t expect the threats with the Kryptonite sais Rhea had constructed. She didn’t expect the lead-tipped syringe either.

_“What did you do?!” Kara demanded to know, her voice angry, shocked as she knelt to the snow lining the floor of the Fortress. Rhea rushed to grab a sai from the ground and held it out in Kara’s direction to keep her away; its presence weakening her and making her take a step backwards._

_“I’m taking him home,” Rhea announced, voice clear, motive obvious._

_Mon-El had fallen to his knees as he coughed and wheezed, panting and desperately trying to suck air into his lungs. Kara’s hand fell to his cheek as she kneeled near him._

_“Mon-El?” she called out, but he wasn’t meeting her eyes. “What was in that needle?” she looked up at Rhea. She still held out the Kryptonite weapon in her palm and it was continuing its work in making Kara nauseous. Mon-El fell over onto his side, his body twitching. Her arms wrapped around his back, and lifted him off the floor to lean against her chest. His eyes were blinking rapidly and she saw sweat break out on his forehead. “Hey, Mon-El…” she tapped his cheek, trying to get him to focus on her._

_Rhea’s eyebrows furrowed as she stared at her son on the ground._

_“Rhea!!” she shouted, getting the woman’s attention. “The needle! What was in it?!”_

_“I--I don’t remember!” her eyes were moving about wildly. “CADMUS. Lillian Luthor. She gave it to me and said it would help put him to sleep so I could take him home without a fight. A temporary slumber so I could transport him to the ship more easily.”_

_Kara looked intently across his face: his eyes were closed now and his breathing becoming shallower. Then it hit her. Lillian Luthor knew Mon-El’s weakness. “Lead! Rhea, was there some kind of lead based substance in there?”_

_Rhea’s eyes widened. “I think so. The needle’s tip is made with lead. She told me it was the only way to pierce his skin…”_

_“Oh, Rao, he’s allergic! It’ll kill him!” She didn’t wait for a response from Rhea. She grabbed the syringe from the ground where it had fallen and she lifted his body and flew, faster than she thought possible, back to the DEO._

_“Help!” she called out loudly upon arrival, “I need help!” Dozens of agents came running toward her._

_“Kara, what happened?” J’onn questioned, quickly moving in her direction._

_“Lead, J’onn. It--it’s lead,” she held out the syringe in her hand as she stabled Mon-El’s body in her arms. “We have to help him. We have to fix this.”_

_“Med bay,” he said, “Now.”_

Stasis. Sedation. Medically induced coma.

That’s what they had told her.

In his weakened state, they were able to knock him out further; put him into a coma to slow his body down, to figure out an antidote to counteract the lead flowing through his bloodstream. J’onn had said it would give them time; time to figure things out, time to make things better. The solution wasn’t all lead; the concentration was very low, but a low concentration injected directly into his bloodstream was all that was needed to poison him that badly.

It had been almost two months and he wasn’t getting any better. Her eyes were wide as she sat there staring at him. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know how to help him.

Truthfully, some dark as coal part inside of her didn’t want to help him. _Not yet_. Because she was _so mad_. She felt so _betrayed_. He had lied to her so easily, for months, nearly a year, hiding his _entire life_ from her: the truth about his parents, his past, his history. She wanted him to hurt the way that she was hurting.

Didn’t he trust her? Didn’t he believe that knowing the truth wouldn’t have mattered to her?

Then, that made her _angrier_ because she didn’t _think_ it would have mattered to her. But in actual fact, it _might_ have.

He was probably right to hide it from her for so long. She liked to say that being a Daxamite didn’t change how she thought of him, and it didn’t. She’d long ago accepted that part of him. But the _Prince of Daxam_? A part of the ruling family on that cruel, savage planet? She supposed that she owed him the chance to explain, but then he ended up in this coma.

She was just feeling so much emotion. Conflict. Confusion. Betrayal. Anxiousness. Anger. Sadness. Worry.

She just needed him to open his eyes. To blink up at her. To make some stupid joke that wasn’t funny at all, but that he found hilarious. She needed him. Alex said he wouldn’t wake up until they brought him out of the coma medically; then it would be his choice to open his eyes, but that didn’t stop her from staring at his lifeless face, silently pleading with him to just _wake up_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all,
> 
> Thank you for all your comments and kudos! I know some of you are worried about "the new guy"...that's it. I'm not speaking further on the topic at all.
> 
> We're gonna spend A LOT of time in Kara and Mon-El's heads the entire fic. So get ready to feel some feelings.
> 
> I hope you're ready, because the ride is just beginning with these two!

**Chapter Two**

_July 21, 2017_

_Three months._ He’d been in his coma for three months when they’d finally gotten rid of the lead in his system. Alex had explained it to her; some chemical compound they’d created and then combined with something else to do some other thing to his blood. She didn’t understand the science. She didn’t really remember what Alex had said. She didn’t really even remember hearing the words come out of her mouth.

She was just so _tired_. She was exhausted: emotionally, mentally, and physically.

She only really remembered Alex telling her two weeks ago that they took Mon-El out of the medically induced coma. Now it was up to him to wake up.

_“When’s he’s ready, he’ll open his eyes,”_ she had said. Like it was the easiest thing in the world. Just be ready, Mon-El, and the magic awakening will happen. She guessed it didn’t matter that she had been ready on his behalf for the last three and a half months. It had been up to him for two weeks and he hadn’t “decided” to open his eyes yet.

She flipped his hand over in her grasp, palm up, a single finger of hers tracing the lines of his skin. Up, down, across, around. A tear fell onto his palm and she jumped slightly. She didn’t realize she was crying. One of her hands left his, reaching up as she dragged the edge of her finger along the bottom of each eye, wiping away the tears that were beginning to slip out.

_This was too hard._

Being here was too hard. Sitting here day in and day out with no response. She didn’t know if she could keep doing this. If she could keep sitting here. She came in here every day and sat with him for a few hours each night: whenever there was no Supergirling to be done, no breaking news story to report.

“Remember last month when I told you I got my job back?” She spoke softly, the tears caught in her throat making her voice crack. She had paused, as if waiting for him to answer her question, even though she knew he wouldn’t. “Well, today I got my first solo byline. All by myself,” she smiled as another tear slid down her cheek. She used both of her hands to lace his fingers with hers, curling his fingers around and holding them against her, desperate to feel him move them; for him to lock his fingers around hers with the strong grip that she missed. “Snapper didn’t bite back at me. I just…delivered a story with--with sources and he took it and had it published.” Her hand moved up to her cheek briefly to swipe away the tear’s track down her face.

She used to sit in silence, for nearly half of each day, staring at his pale face, staring at the beeping machines attached to his body, watching his breathing; his chest a steady up and down as he breathed for himself. At least there was that. He took in air and expelled it calmly, as if he were just sleeping.

But he wouldn’t _wake up_.

Around the eight week mark it became too depressing to just sit there in sad silence, so she started to talk to him while he lay there unresponsive. Alex told her that it was good to talk to people who were lying there unconscious; that they likely could hear what was being said to them, almost as if they were simply just dreaming; your words the voiceover to whatever was going on in their head. She would tell him about her day; about the bad guys she’d caught, about something hilarious Winn had done, or retell some story that Alex had shared with her that she thought he might enjoy hearing, too.

She used to ask the agents how he was doing. What his charts were saying. What the machines were recording.

She didn’t ask anymore.

She knew it was pointless. There was no change. There never was.

She was sad that he wasn’t waking up, but that wasn’t the only reason.

She wanted to tell him.

She didn’t want any secrets between them. Part of her was screaming not to say it because it would hurt him and though she wouldn’t admit it, saying it out loud to him would hurt her, too. But then she remembered, what did it matter? He’d been unconscious for over three months, they’d been broken up for nearly a month before that, and the last real thing he’d done to her before slipping into this coma was lie.

She’d met someone.

Eric Nicholls.

Just thinking of his name brought a smile to her face. He was sweet, smart, adorable, attractive and _normal_. Just a normal human being without homicidal maniac parents or a slave-owning past life.

She was tired of waiting around. She missed what she had with Mon-El. She wanted that kind of happiness back.

Eric. He made her laugh. He listened to her. He was honest. He was opinionated. He was everything she needed right now. Spending every evening sitting at the bedside of her lying ex-boyfriend who betrayed her, who she’d broken up with and kicked out of her home was draining and she couldn’t do it anymore.

Being with Eric, she didn’t have to. He didn’t know she was Supergirl. He didn’t know she had an alien with lead poisoning resting in a coma in a secret government organization med bay that she had to check in on.

With Eric, she could forget the crazy chaos that was her life. She could just relax with someone who wanted to be with her, wanted to talk to her, wanted to love her.

And he did.

Every night for the last week.

She knew it was probably still too soon. She knew that they’d only known each other for a little over a month and they’d only been together for a couple of weeks, but it made her feel good to finally feel something other than sadness and pain and betrayal and abandonment. She refused to feel guilty for enjoying herself, enjoying her time with another person while Mon-El lay here motionless in this bed. They were broken up for Rao’s sake! She wasn’t going to feel guilty for carrying on with her life. Besides, he could just wake up whenever he wanted to! This was _not_ her problem to solve.

She blinked against the tears in her eyes that she noticed were still there as she shook her head. She had made a promise to herself before she’d arrived tonight. She promised that she would stop sitting at Mon-El’s beside. She promised that she would say goodbye, tell his unmoving form that she found someone else and she couldn’t keep sitting here waiting for him to come to his senses and come back to her. She didn’t want him to come back to her anyway. She wanted him to wake up alone, without her and remember what he’d done to her and how he made her feel and then go on with _his_ life, _without her_. Just like she would without him.

But she didn’t say anything.

She let go of his hand, his fingers easily uncurling from hers when she let him go. She placed his hand in its previous position, palm flat against the mattress of the DEO bed, and she stood. She straightened out her Supergirl suit and left the room without a second glance back at him.

It was time to _move on_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!! 
> 
> Also, as I receive notifications for my own fics (to make sure that I actually post and don't just "save draft for later" accidentally), I've been noticing that the email is sometimes only arriving sometimes a half hour after the chapter is posted. So, if you rarely check email or you are fic-addicted and want an instant post-chapter-posting Twitter mention letting you know, find me on Twitter and I'll add you to the list of people I notify right after posting.
> 
> @_ashleymaria_


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back everyone!
> 
> I've loved reading all your comments on the past couple of chapters! I love the questions and the theories and the guesses -- please keep 'em coming!
> 
> Now, I don't know about you all, but I think that it's about time Mon-El woke up. Oh, and it's also about time we met the "new guy"...

**Chapter Three**

_August 31, 2017_

His eyes flew open on a gasp as he sat straight up in bed; eyes wide and panicked, his heart pounding in his chest. He looked around the room, his brain feeling fuzzy, his throat burning, his head spinning. His eyes searched the room for something that would make sense. He blinked a few times, his mind slowly registering that he was in the DEO med bay. He had oxygen tubes up his nose and something was pinching his finger. _It hurt_. He looked down and saw a plastic device clasping his index finger. _What the hell was that for?_ He blinked while staring at it, following the device’s wires to a machine that didn’t make any sense to him either.

It must have only been a few seconds before a bunch of people came running into the room and that’s when he realized that the machines around him were beeping wildly. He recognized Alex’s face amongst the crowd; one of the biggest smiles on her face, eyes shiny with tears. He furrowed his eyebrows at her. He didn’t think he’d ever seen a smile that big on her face. And was she crying? Why was she _crying_? That’s when he noticed multiple agents grabbing at him: checking his pulse on his arm, pulling the bedsheet away from his body, some instrument being shoved down the neck of the scrubs that he was wearing and being pressed against his chest. Wait, where were his clothes?

_What the hell was going on?_

He opened his mouth to ask Alex. _Kara_. He thought he said it out loud, but Alex didn’t respond. She just shook her head at him with a small smile.

“Mon-El, you’re okay,” she assured him, her voice cracking as she moved an agent aside and stepped closer to him, nudging him to lie back on the bed.

He opened his mouth and she shook her head at him again. “You’ve been out for a while. Your throat is going to be sore until you recover and get your powers back. It’s gonna be hard to talk.”

He kept trying anyway. “Kara,” he croaked out, his voice dry, cracked, gruff and barely audible, but Alex knew. She nodded.

“Please, let the agents check you over. Make sure everything’s okay.”

“See her,” he coughed, sitting straight up in bed again, knocking one of the agents backwards slightly. His eyes scanned the room. He looked to the bed next to him. It was empty. Where was Kara?

“Shhh,” Alex shushed him, a hand on each shoulder as she tried to get him to lay back down.

“Now,” he demanded, his voice becoming slightly clearer and on the edge of panic. Why wasn’t Alex telling him where Kara was? What happened to him? Was Kara with him when he was hurt? Why wouldn’t she be? “Now, I--I want to--” he coughed loudly, harshly, “see Kara.” He nudged at the agent holding the instrument to his chest, the tool sliding upwards and out of his scrubs, falling out of their hands and down to the floor.

“Mon-El, relax!” Alex shouted, her eyes wide as he tried to pull the device from his finger. Her hands grabbed his. “Mon-El, hey, look at me!” His wide eyes rose to hers.

“Is she okay?” he choked out.

Alex’s eyebrows furrowed. “She’s fine!” She saw him exhale heavily. “Mon-El, she’s fine.” She moved to push him to lay down again. “She’s just not here.”

He looked at her confusedly. “Where?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugged, but smiled. “I’ll call her. I’ll call her right now. She’ll be happy you’re awake. Now, please, calm down. Lie back. Let the agents finish looking you over.”

“She’s okay?” he asked again.

“Yes! Mon-El, I just said she was fine. Just breathe.”

He nodded and could feel his heart immediately slow down. _She’s okay_. He still didn’t understand what happened to him, but as long as she was safe, he was okay.

He watched Alex leave the room as he sighed. His throat was burning, his eyes were tired. Maybe he should just sleep until Kara came back. His eyes slipped closed and he let out a breath. He didn’t know how long he was asleep for, but he was dying to see Kara. It felt like forever since he last held her in his arms, kissed her lips, ran his fingers through her hair, snuggled up against her back.

 _He missed her_.

* * *

Alex stood outside the med bay, pulling her cell phone out of her pocket. Where _was_ Kara? She hadn’t seen her in hours. Albeit, there were no Supergirl related crises to attend to…

Then it hit her.

Eric. She was with Eric. Lately, she was _always_ with Eric…

ERIC! Mon-El didn’t know about Eric!

Alex’s eyes widened as she realized that some Kara related things had happened in the last five months that he’d been asleep for. Things that would likely affect his life directly that he’d completely missed out on.

It was all going to be a lot to process.

Everyone had really started to lose hope. Nobody knew how to wake him up, what to do, or what to tell Kara as she sat at his bedside for months. She turned to watch Mon-El through the glass walls of the med bay.

_“Kara, honey, you need to go home. Please,” Alex had whispered against the crown of her sister’s head._

_Kara’s head shot upwards and off the side of the mattress as she blinked frantically. “Huh?”_

_“Kara,” Alex sighed. “Go home.”_

_“I will. Just a little while longer.”_

_“He’s not going to wake up,” Alex spoke softly. “Not yet. We don’t have an antidote. We have to cure him before we can take him out of the coma.”_

_“I get it, Alex. I just--I’ll leave in a few minutes,” she rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her hands._

_Alex grabbed a nearby stool and dragged it towards Kara, sitting down and grabbing a hold of her sister’s chin._

_“Kara, you have to let this go. This isn’t your fault. It’s his mother’s.”_

_“I told him, Alex!” she shouted before her eyes darted wildly around the room. Her voice dropped lower, as if her yelling would wake him, “_ I _told him to go talk to his mother. To tell her that he didn’t want to leave. To stand up to her. And she attacked_ me _! If I wasn’t there, if she wasn’t holding those Kryptonite sais, if he wasn’t trying to protect me from her, he wouldn’t have been distracted. He would have seen the syringe. He could have gotten away.”_

_Alex nodded her head in Mon-El’s direction. “And you think that if he woke up right now and heard you say all that, that he would agree with you? That he’d blame you?”_

_Kara looked down at his sleeping form and she shook her head, “Alex, you don’t know what he’d say; what he'd think. Only he does.”_

_“I know that he loves you…”_

_Kara’s head shot back around to look at her sister. “I didn’t tell you that so you could throw it back in my face.”_

_“I’m not throwing it in your face, Kara. I’m just saying…you’re just so…_ angry _all the time now. You’re mad at him for lying to you. You’re mad at yourself because you think you got him into this mess. You just need to relax. Your anger isn’t going to fix this. It’s not going to bring him back to you.”_

_“I don’t want him back,” she spat. “We broke up…months ago. You know that. I just want him to wake up so I don’t have to think about this anymore. About him. I want to move on, Alex. I want to leave him behind, and I can’t do that if it’s my fault he got hurt and ended up here like this. I mean, what if she comes back?”_

_“Rhea?”_

_“Yes, what if she comes back to take him away? I should be here to protect him while he can’t protect himself. That’s what I do. I protect people.”_

_“Kara, Rhea’s gone. You know that. She told you herself…how awful she felt…how dangerous it was for her to be around him. It was destroying her. She knows that he wants to stay here on Earth and he’d only fight her the entire way home. She couldn't form her New Daxam with a rebellious son in tow. She didn't care about him enough to try. The ship disappeared from our scans. She’s gone. And you need to be, too," she sighed. "Go home. Let the agents here protect him, anyway. It’s their job, too.”_

She shook her head, knocking the memory from her mind. She saw Mon-El pop an eye open as he spoke to one of the agents moving about in his room. All that, and here he was, as if nothing had happened. Talking, breathing, awake, asking to see Kara. Wait. Why was Mon-El asking to see Kara? Why was he so frantic and concerned? Why did he think she would be hurt, too? His concerns were a little strange, given how they left things.

Alex’s eyebrows furrowed as she dialed Kara’s number on her phone. She’d definitely be happy to hear this news; to hear that this craziness was over and that he was okay. She didn’t have to feel bad anymore. No more worrying necessary.

* * *

Kara’s phone vibrated loudly, moving along the top of the end table, the sound echoing in the quiet room.

“Ignore it,” he whispered against her lips as she sat in his lap, his hands gripping her hips tightly as she ground against him.

“It could be important,” she whined as she leaned over, her arm stretching as she grabbed at the phone. Alex’s smiling face stared back at her. “It’s my sister. I have to answer it.”

Eric groaned loudly as his forehead fell to her shoulder.

“Alex? Everything okay?” His hands moved along her back, up and under her shirt as his lips moved to her neck, kisses sliding up and along her jaw as she giggled and tried to push him away.

“He’s awake.”

Kara paused. There was no doubting what that meant. There was only one person in her life that that sentence could possibly apply to that would be worthy of a phone call. Nonetheless, “What?”

“Mon-El. He’s awake. He’s asking for you.”

There was a long pause. Uncomfortable silence between the sisters; one wondering why nothing came through the line, the other trying to make a decision.

“Tell him I’ll see him tomorrow.”

Eric smiled as he leaned in to kiss her lips, open mouthed and slow and Alex could hear it on the other end of the phone.

“Kara, honestly right now? What the hell does that even mean? It’s been five months and he literally ju--”

“Alex,” she cut her off. “I’m busy right now.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me. You weren’t there and he woke up, confused and near screaming, worried that you were somehow hurt, too.”

Kara’s mind flipped back to the moment he was attacked by his mother. “He’s probably just thinking of his mother and about…” she paused, catching herself before saying it in front of Eric, “Just--just tell him I’m fine.”

“You’re about to be more than fine,” Eric mumbled against her shoulder and she shushed him.

Alex shook her head in disbelief as her eyes connected with Mon-El’s through the glass walls. “What the hell am I supposed to tell him?”

“Tomorrow,” she repeated. “Tell him I’ll see him tomorrow. I gotta go.”

And just like that, there was a dial tone in Alex’s ear and a confused Daxamite staring back at her.

* * *

Kara’s heart was racing. Pounding in her ears. Her head was spinning and she felt nauseous.

But Eric flipped them around, her back landing on the mattress, her head on the pillow, his lips on hers and she didn’t stop him.

She didn’t say no.

She didn’t say that someone else needed her.

She didn’t leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading guys! I hope you're all enjoying it. Please leave a kudos or comment if you can, or come find me on Twitter @_ashleymaria_ :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back readers!!
> 
> I know we're all a little upset at the decisions Kara is making and we're all not liking Eric too much and we're all worried about what's going on with Mon-El, so no more waiting and wondering (for a bit at least) because we're on to Chapter 4!
> 
> P.S. Once again, thank you all for your comments, guesses, questions, kudos and follows! 
> 
> @_ashleymaria_

**Chapter Four**

_August 31, 2017_

Alex removed the phone from her ear and shoved it back in her pocket. She had no choice. He was watching her through the glass. He knew she was talking to someone. She had to go in and tell him something. _Anything_. She sighed heavily as she moved toward the door.

The agents were starting to release him, their checking in on him now over and he sat up straight.

“Alex?” His voice was a lot clearer now.

“Hmm?” She hummed, having not yet figured out what to tell him.

“Kara? Did you talk to her? Was that her on the phone? Is she coming?” His voice was nervous, almost scared.

Alex nodded, “Yeah, but not right now.”

He stared at her confusedly, “Is she okay?”

“Mon-El, please stop asking me that. She’s fine. She just can’t…get away right now.

“Get away from what?” he prodded.

“She’s just…in a situation…a situation she can’t get out of right now. Besides, it’s late…she’ll just probably get here tomorrow morning.”

She hoped nobody showed him a window because it was barely six o’clock; the summer sun still bright and shining. Her eyes searched around the room for any sign of the actual time.

“Oh,” he nodded sadly and she turned to look at him. She just stood there in silence, unsure as to what she should say or what she should do.

“How do you feel?” she suddenly asked, concern on her face, still hesitant as to whether or not he was at one hundred percent.

“Fine, I guess. I mean, a little tired. That’s probably weird considering I’ve been unconscious.”

“Your body will likely be tired until you get your powers back,” the last agent in the room chimed in. “Give it a couple of days and you should be back to normal.” She nodded before turning to leave. She pointed next to his arm. “Press the red button if you need anything from one of us.” He nodded silently in response and then turned back to Alex.

“Alex, what happened to me?” he asked once they were alone.

Alex bit her lip. “What’d you remember?”

He thought for a long moment and finally shrugged. “Nothing. I mean…I remember I was with Kara…” he trailed off as he tried to concentrate. “We were at her apartment,” his eyes slipped closed as he drifted back into the memory. “We were watching _Game of Thrones_ ,” he smiled to himself. His eyes popped open to connect with hers. “We were watching all the shows she didn’t have time to watch when she was at CatCo, you know, since she was always so busy. But after she got fired, we had more time for TV night. We made it to Season 3 before we got…distracted…” he trailed off again, a small smile sliding onto his face, a light blush hitting his cheeks.

Season 3? She could have sworn Kara had said…

“But that’s it?” she asked, her eyebrows furrowed together.

He nodded. “Yeah, I mean, I don’t understand how I got hurt watching TV,” he laughed, “especially with Kara sitting right there.” He sighed, “I just want to hold her. Rao, I feel like I’ve been sleeping forever. I miss her.”

Hold her? They weren’t exactly in a good place when…

“Mon-El, uhm,” she started. “Standard question when someone wakes up from a coma: What day is it today?”

He paused for a minute, his eyebrows furrowing as he looked to be concentrating. “March 20th? Wait, I know we were watching TV together on March 20th. So maybe March 21st by now? 22nd?”

Alex’s eyes widened and she nodded, trying to do it slowly, not frantically like she wanted to. It came out in the form of a question, but it didn’t seem like he was confused. It seemed like he thought that was a dumb question for her to ask him. “You know what? I think you should rest. We’ll talk about this later. Just take it easy.”

“But, Alex, I--”

“No, no,” she started, as she waved her hands in the air. “Tomorrow. We’ll talk about this tomorrow. With Kara.”

He nodded with furrowed eyebrows. “Uhm, okay. I guess I’ll just--” he yawned widely. “Well, apparently I’m tired. So, I---uh, I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

She smiled, probably too widely and too forced as she exited the room.

She rolled her eyes at herself. Great, now she also had to tell all of the agents to stay out of his room and pretend it was the middle of the night.

* * *

_September 1, 2017_

Damn that phone of hers!

Its incessant vibrations along the end table were interrupting her sleep. She groaned as she leaned over and grabbed it, almost slapping herself in the face with it as she tried to get it to her ear.

“Hel--”

“Kara, you need to get here now.”

“Alex?” her voice was scratchy, having just woken up. She looked over at Eric, flopped on his stomach, looking in the opposite direction of her, his face buried in the pillow. “What’s wrong?” she whispered, blinking, a hand rubbing at her eyes as she sat up in bed.

“Kara,” her voice was stern. “You need to get to the DEO. Right. Now.”

She flung the blankets off of her body, her mind quickly jumping into Supergirl mode. “I’ll be right there!” She was wide awake now.

Eric mumbled something and she turned to him. “Hey, Eric? I gotta run.” He blinked sleepily at her and she kissed his cheek. “I’ll see you tonight.”

She hopped out of bed before he could say anything and she was long gone before he really registered that she was leaving.

She flew into the DEO, landing smoothly as all eyes looked up at her. Silence. Nobody was saying anything. Nobody was moving. Everyone was just staring at her. It didn’t look like an emergency situation. Nobody was running to her with instructions. Then she saw Alex walk through the crowd of agents, steadily stepping towards her. She moved slowly down the steps and in her direction.

“Alex,” her voice was low, eyes concerned. “What’s going on here?”

“It’s Mon-El…”

“You woke me up to talk about Mon-El?” she sighed loudly, her voice tinged with annoyance. “It’s barely 7:00am. I told you to tell him I’d see him tomorrow.”

“Well, it’s tomorrow,” she said shortly, “and this is important.” She grabbed her sister’s arm. “Not in front of everyone,” she commented as she tugged her in the direction of the med bay.

“What’s so important?” she asked, her voice at a whisper while they walked.

“Well for one, he just woke up from a five month coma.”

Kara rolled her eyes, “Alex, I know. That’s fantastic. I’m happy he’s finally awake. But...but I’m still mad at him you know…I’m not exactly excited to have a conversation with him. Or for him to yell at me about making him go talk to his mother and getting him attacked by the woman.”

“I know you’re upset with him, but Kara…he doesn’t remember.”

“That I’m mad at him?”

Alex shook her head.

“About his mother?”

“Anything,” she answered.

Kara blinked at her, “Well, he was in a coma. I didn’t think he’d actually remember anything that he’d heard or what was going on around him while he was out, I mean--”

“Kara, listen to me,” Alex stopped her, “he doesn’t remember _anything_ that has happened.”

She stared at her sister confused. “What’d you mean he doesn’t remember what happened? What happened when? What’s the last thing he remembers?”

“You. With him. On your sofa. _Game of Thrones_.”

“What?” she asked, her eyebrows furrowing.

“Season 3. And I know for a fact that you’re all caught up. _And_ that you watched the rest of the series with him. You told me so yourself.”

Kara just stared back at her sister.

“Kara, he literally thinks it’s March.”

Kara shook her head. “You’re kidding. Alex, this isn’t funny.”

“I said, ‘What day is it?’ and he said March 20th. And that was _after_ he told me that he can’t wait to hold you in his arms again.”

Kara blinked at her, mouth agape.

“He’s literally missing like three weeks of his life, Kara. He doesn’t remember that you broke up with him. He doesn’t remember his parents hacking the electronic signals and sending out their message when they were looking for him. He doesn’t remember the ship and that you went up there with him and met his parents. He doesn’t remember his mother attacking you or shooting that lead into his neck. Kara,” she paused, her eyes wide as she watched her sister’s face, “It’s all gone.”

Kara cleared her throat, “Alex, this doesn’t make sense. How can this be?”

Alex sighed heavily, “Kara, sometimes after a coma, there’s some memory loss. A short term coma might lead to some short term memory loss. A prolonged coma…something like what Mon-El went through, it could be temporary memory loss, it could be permanent. Really, there’s no way to know other than to sit around and see what happens. The whole ordeal might have been traumatic to Mon-El. This could even be some kind of PTSD caused memory loss. He could be blocking it all out: having to deal with his parents arriving unexpectedly, you breaking up with him, then his mother attacking him? These are not easy things to deal with, Kara.”

“So what am I supposed to do now?”

Alex shrugged. “You’re gonna have to tell him.”

“What? Me? Why me?” her eyes were wide and worried.

“He’s your boyfriend.”

“He’s _not_ my boyfriend!” she shouted, louder than she intended.

“Well, he still thinks he is, so you’re gonna have to go in there and tell him why you broke his heart and that you’ve moved on. He won’t want to hear it from me, Kara. He’s been begging to see you since the second his eyes opened. He’s not going to listen to or believe anybody else. You know that.”

Kara sighed heavily. She knew Alex was right. He’d believe her. She knew she had to go in there. He owed her for lying to her, but she owed him the truth about how this happening to him was her fault. Her eyes drifted down the hallway and she could see him sitting there on the bed in the med bay. He looked fidgety: his foot was bouncing, his eyes darting around the room. She sighed before she walked past Alex and headed toward the med bay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just one quick thing I wanted to mention -- I've participated in it with some other fandoms, but some of you may not have...a Fandom Map.
> 
> Basically, you add a pin to a map of the world with your location (city/town, province, country - however much detail you wanted to add) with your name or Twitter handle and in the end, we have a giant map showing how widespread us fans are across the world. I haven't seen one for Karamel fans, so I started one. You can find it at https://www.zeemaps.com/map?group=2594021 . Instructions (should you need them) are also in the Photos on my Twitter page, but it's pretty simple. 
> 
> If you're on a computer: Click on the link to take you to the map. On the top bar, slide your pointer over "Additions" then click "Add Marker - Simple". Type in your location and add your Twitter handle (if you have one) or your name or your nickname in the first two boxes. Change your marker colour at the bottom if you'd like. Click submit and you should see yourself on the map!
> 
> On your mobile: Click on the link. "See Map" and click the little gray box followed by + Add and fill in the same set of info.
> 
> We've got 37 pins right now, and I know there's more of us than that ;) . It'd be awesome if you guys could add yourselves if you haven't already. We almost have at least one person on each continent of the world (where you at Australia, Africa and Antarctica?) already!
> 
> Y'all are amazing and thank you again for your lovely comments and praise. I appreciate every word of it!!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, amnesia! 
> 
> Some of us saw it coming, some of us may have been hoping that it wouldn't happen, some of us love it. I don't normally like amnesia when good things have been forgotten because it often just means more pain for my ships (although I do love people faking amnesia -- side note: Mon-El isn't faking). Now I'm sure we're all wondering whether or not he'll remember everything. Reminder that Flashbacks/Memories (if any) are always in italics.
> 
> But besides, before Mon-El can (maybe) remember everything, he'll have to be told that he actually HAS amnesia. Get ready for our first ACTUAL KaraMel conversation of the fic!

**Chapter Five**

_September 1, 2017_

“Kara!” he exclaimed as she timidly walked into the med bay. He hadn’t noticed she was walking toward him; his eyes only landing on her when she was standing in the doorway. She tried to smile, but she wasn’t sure it actually reached her lips. He sat further upright in the bed, his hands straightening out the creases in the sheet his legs were covered with.

“Hi,” she greeted him quietly.

“I’m glad you came,” he smiled. “I know I’ve probably been asleep for a while, but I’ve missed you.”

She walked past his feet and over to his left side, pulling a nearby stool up to the edge of the bed. She sat down, eyes at her own feet as she sighed and thought of what to say.

Her mind flashed back to the Medusa Virus; how they’d been in the same positions, his hand against her cheek, pulling her to him in a kiss. His lips were soft, not pushing, his hand barely pulling her towards him.

This time was the same; his hand reached up and fell on her cheek again and before she realized it, he was pulling her into a kiss. Her hand moved quickly to his chest, pushing him back, his lips releasing hers as her face tilted downward.

“Mon-El,” she breathed.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice worried, eyes wide.

“We need to talk…”

“Uh oh. Sounds serious,” he smiled brightly as he joked.

Her head rose and her eyes connected with his. “It’s very serious.”

His smile disappeared and he leaned away from her, his hand dropping from her cheek. She sighed heavily. Where did she even start?

“It’s September,” she blurted out.

“Huh?” he asked, confused. “What’s September?”

“The month. This month. It’s September. Today…it’s September 1st.” She waited. Waited for the news to sink in. Waited for it to make sense to him.

He paused for a while before joking with wide eyes, “So I guess you probably watched the rest of _Game of Thrones_ without me then…” She just stared at him.

“Not exactly…”

“Kara, I’m confused. Are you saying I’ve been in this coma…”

“For five months. Yes. Since April 13th.”

“April? What? But…I--I don’t…” he paused. “I don’t understand, Kara.”

She sighed as her leg started to bounce, her heart starting to pound. “Mon-El, what’s the last thing you remember?” she questioned him, even though she knew the answer.

His eyes left hers as they closed, him obviously trying hard to think back. “We were just watching TV at your apartment. I--” he huffed loudly, “Why can’t I remember anything? What happened to me?”

“Your mother--”

“My mother?” His eyes popped open as he looked at her, fear obvious on his face. “My mother’s alive? My mother’s here?”

“Alive, yes. Here, not anymore,” Kara shook her head. “I’ll…let me explain…”

“Please, do.”

“We were watching _Game of Thrones_ …at my apartment. Season 6--”

“But I--”

“Please, Mon-El,” she stopped him. “Just let me tell you everything.”

He nodded and sat back.

“We were settling in, deciding what to watch next and this message came up on the TV screen. It was your mother asking that you be returned to her. Long story short, she and your father…they came to Earth to bring you home. To start a New Daxam…to build a new world for the Daxamites that were left. You didn’t want to go with them, but she was…relentless,” she shook her head.

“Wait…so, you know?”

Her eyes met his and she kept her face neutral. “Know what?”

“Never mind,” he said quickly. “Continue.”

Kara shook her head. He now knew that she knew about his parents and their plan and he _still_ wasn’t going to mention who he really was. That he was the Prince. That he had lied to her.

“Wow.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “Wow, what?”

“Again. This is happening _all over again_. You’re not even going to tell me who you are. Who your parents are,” she shook her head as she stood from the stool and began to pace the floor.

“Who my parents are?” his eyes were worried and Kara swore she saw tears springing forward, but that just made her angrier. “Who I am? I don’t know--”

“The Prince!” she shouted at him as she turned to glare at him. “I know who _you_ are, Mon-El. I know who _they_ are.” Mon-El’s chin fell, his gaze landing in his lap before he shut his eyes. “That you lied to me for months. That _clearly_ as we can see right now, you would have kept lying to me. If I hadn’t met them, hadn’t run after you onto their ship, I never would have known!”

His gaze rose, “Kara--” He was blinking repeatedly, his face clearly giving off the impression that she just made him way more confused than he already was, but she didn’t care.

“This is why I had to break u--” she stopped herself from finishing the sentence, her feet stopping their movements too as her eyes connected with his.

His shoulders sunk. “What?”

She closed her eyes and sighed. “Mon-El, we broke up.” She didn’t speak further and she didn’t open her eyes.

He was silent for a while and then, “Well…I don’t think that’s true.” Her eyes popped open. “I don’t think ‘we’ did anything, Kara. I would never break up with you; not if I still feel this way, which I’m sure I felt five months ago. It sounds like you dumped me.”

“I did,” she answered confidently. “You lied to me, Mon-El. About everything. That changed things. It changed us. I can’t be with someone who--”

“I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d be mad. I thought that if you knew the truth about me and my past and my family, you would break up with me, and hey, it looks like I was right.” He crossed his arms as he looked away from her.

“I’m sorry, are _you_ mad at _me_?” she walked toward him.

He sighed heavily and threw his arms up in the air, “I just don’t understand how after all this, I somehow ended up in a coma for five months.”

She heard him sniffle and she felt it in her chest even though she didn’t want to. He was on the verge of crying, he was really fucking confused and here she was yelling at him. She was angry, but still. The more rational part inside of her knew that she needed to calm down and finish explaining. She sat back down on the stool.

“Your mother…she said that there was nothing for you here on Earth; that you didn’t need me, that you should return to Daxam with your family. You…well sorta…asked me what I should do and I told you to stand up to her.”

“That sounds like a bad idea,” he said, his voice cracking slightly from the tears grabbing at his throat.

“That’s what you said five months ago,” she almost laughed. “I told you to use the Fortress as a safe space…to have the discussion with her. I said I’d go with you. Rhea…she had this syringe that Lillian Luthor had given her--”

“What?” his teary eyes met hers. “Why was my mother working with Lillian Luthor?”

“Rhea had found her and knew she was powerful…Lillian wanted to get rid of the aliens on this planet and your mother wanted to take you home. It must have seemed like a win-win for her. Lillian said she had something to help immobilize you…to put you to sleep so she could transport you back to the ship without a fight. It was lead, Mon-El.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head, “Of course it was.”

“She injected you with a lead tipped needle and the solution inside had some traces of lead. She poisoned you, and I--I flew you back here to try to heal you. They had to put you in a medically induced coma…it’s like stasis. They had to figure out how to get rid of the poison in your system. After three months, they took you out of it, but we had to wait for you to wake up. Which, you did yesterday, clearly.”

“And where are my parents now?”

“Your mother was really distraught. She came to the DEO a few weeks into your coma. She said that it looked like we were taking good care of you and that she didn’t think she would be able to help. She had nothing on her ship that could counteract the lead poisoning. She said she realized that you belonged with your Earth family. She said she could tell you didn’t want to leave Earth and she said you’d do more trouble than good if she brought you back to New Daxam anyway.”

“That sounds like something she’d say,” he huffed.

“So…yeah. I guess that’s everything.”

“How long have we been broken up?”

“I guess technically almost six months.”

His eyes widened dramatically. “Wow.” He felt her words in his chest, and his stomach, and his groin; as if she had superpunched him everywhere on his body that it would hurt most. “So, I guess you’re well on your way to moving on then…”

She nodded. “Yup, moving on.” Though she left out the part about moving on with Eric. She stood from the stool and straightened out her Supergirl suit. “I know this is going to be weird for you, Mon-El, but I need you to respect my choice to end things. I need you to not push this and not try to…to win me back or anything. I’m still mad that you lied to me and I just can’t look past that right now.”

“And in the future?”

Her eyes connected with his. “I don’t know what the future brings, but…I wouldn’t hold onto the idea of us happening ever again.”

He nodded as the tears burned at the back of his eyes. “Okay,” he agreed quietly as she turned to leave. “Kara?” he called out before she made it to the doorway. She turned to look back at him. “I just want you to be happy,” he shrugged slightly. A tear rolled down the side of his face and she pretended that she didn’t notice. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t make you happy.”

Her mind flashed back to the memory that he didn’t recall. The moment before everything went into a tailspin. When she sat in his lap on her couch, ice cream in hand, their bodies wrapped in a fluffy blanket.

_“I’m just happy,” she smiled and she could feel the blush starting at her cheeks as she played with the spoon and ice cream cup in her hands._

_“Yeah?”_

_“Yeah. Like that dopey grin, butterflies in my stomach happy.”_

_“Mhm,” he hummed back at her._

_“Is that cheesy?” her head fell into him, nose to his shoulder._

_“It’s like a rom-com on steroids cheesy.” Her eyes connected with his. “I’m happy you’re happy.”_

It happened so long ago; it felt like a lifetime ago. But, she could still feel his body against her, the press of his lips, how they widened as he smiled against her. She could still see the adoring look in his eyes; hear the small moan of satisfaction that left him as their lips connected in a kiss. She shook the memory from her head.

She tried to smile at him as she walked out and she was sure it did absolutely nothing to comfort him. Because it sure as hell didn’t comfort her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for reading, commenting/following, your kudos, your favouriting/bookmarking, your follows on Twitter and your Fandom Map participating!!
> 
> Whenever I need a pick me up, your love on here and Twitter is the best!!
> 
>  
> 
> Follow me on Twitter: @_ashleymaria_
> 
> Add yourself to the KaraMel Fandom Map (we're up to 82 pins!): https://www.zeemaps.com/map?group=2594021


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> Welcome to chapter six!
> 
> Some more KaraMel in this chapter...though I can't guarantee it's happy KaraMel...

**Chapter Six**

_September 3, 2017_

_“Mon-El, what’re you doing?” her eyes were wide, her voice concerned._

_“I’m going up there,” he had stated, sure as anything. He felt her hand grip his arm and spin him around._

_“No, no, they literally just tried to kill me. How do you know they won’t shoot you on site?”_

_“I don’t,” he agreed, “but, they want me. This is my decision,” he stated, obviously already having convinced himself._

_“Hey,” Alex walked toward them, “We picked up a honing signal on a teleportation beam.”_

_“The ship is locking onto our coordinates right now,” J’onn chimed in. “We’ll have backup ready if you need us.”_

_He nodded at the agents and then turned to Kara as she moved toward him. “Are you sure about this?” she asked him._

_His hands held her face, fingers sliding through her hair as he stared back at her, “I’ll be okay,” he assured her at a whisper before his lips met hers softly. When they broke away, he tried to smile at her. Her eyes were so bright staring back at him and she looked unsure enough for the both of them._

_He stepped toward the teleportation beam before his eyes slipped closed. And then he felt it and it made him jump: her chest collided with his as she threw herself against him, arms locking around him tightly, face pressed to his shoulder. By the time he had realized what had happened, they were standing in his parents' ship._

_“Why did you follow me?”_

_She looked up at him, “Well, I didn’t want you to come up here by yourself!”_

He flew into a seated position; sweat starting to create a layer across his forehead. That never happened to him. What the hell _was_ that? A dream? A memory. It had felt so real. He could still feel her chest pressed up against his own. He could hear the tone of her voice as she worried about him going onto that ship. He saw her standing there so vividly in front of him.

He looked around the room at the DEO. The lights were dimmed. There was nobody in the halls. It must have been the middle of the night.

Alex had said his memories might return. Maybe that’s what that was? He shook his head and flexed his neck and shoulders. Maybe his memories would only return during sleep? He looked around the dark room once more. Might as well try to sleep again. Hopefully, he’d finally remember what _actually_ happened between him and Kara.

* * *

_September 26, 2017_

Mon-El had been back to work at the DEO for a little over three weeks. It didn’t take him more than a day or two to get his powers back full strength and for him to make his way out of the med bay and back onto the streets of National City alongside Kara (well, when she wasn’t finding any excuse _not_ to work with him). Truthfully, physically he was up and ready to go, but emotionally and mentally, that was a lot harder.

_Kara had dumped him._

It still hadn’t really sunk in. Probably because he'd never really experienced it. She just kept repeating it _over and over again_ , as if he’d somehow recall those feelings in that moment, but in reality, he didn’t remember what he had said to try to defend himself; what he had said to make it better. He didn’t know what he tried and what didn’t work and so he didn’t know at all where he could possibly start in trying to fix this.

But he understood; he got it. He knew from the moment he told everybody his fake story about the Daxamite Prince saving his life, he knew it would come back and bite him in the ass. He knew it would come back to haunt him, but back then, he didn’t know that he would fall in love with Kara, or that she would _actually_ want to be with him. He figured he’d tell the truth when it suited him best and when it helped him get ahead. Like he always did on Daxam.

And then Kara taught him how to think of other people first; how to consider other people’s feelings, thoughts and emotions. She changed him. And then it all blew up in his face and _he didn’t even remember it happening._

He didn’t remember what he said, what she said. Were they yelling at each other? Was there crying? It drove him crazy that his mind just erased everything. Lately, he'd been picking up things; small, random and seemingly useless pieces of information from the days he couldn't remember. Things that were so pointless, he didn't understand why he'd remembered them in the first place. The fact that he couldn't remember anything major, it put him in this position where he didn’t know what to say or do or think next with Kara in trying to fix things. It didn’t help that she just wouldn’t talk to him about it.

Until today.

He stood outside her apartment door, his hands still jammed into his pockets. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to knock. He didn’t know why she called him over here, but he was pretty sure he didn’t want to talk about whatever it was she wanted to talk about, which was most likely their relationship. Or more specifically, their _lack of_ _relationship_.

He exhaled loudly before raising a hand and knocking against the wood. He heard her feet patter towards the door, socked feet hitting against hardwood as she made her way across the apartment. The door swung open and his eyes connected with hers.

Neither of them said anything for a moment; he was trying to figure out what mood she was in by scanning her face and she was just staring back at him wordlessly.

“You wanted to see me?” he questioned softly, shrugging his shoulders. “Here I am.”

She nodded quickly, “Right, yeah, come on in.” She moved aside to allow him entry into the apartment. He walked past her and towards the table, his hip hitting the wood as he leaned against it and waited for her to fill him in on what was going on in her head.

She walked toward him, passing him and turning around to face him. “I want to be friends,” she stated clearly and suddenly. He stared back at her, his face as monotone as could be.

“Friends?” he questioned, an eyebrow cocked at her.

“Yeah…” she tried and she shifted nervously from foot to foot, “I think that we should stay friends. I mean, we _are_ friends right? I just think that us being friends will work well for National City and for the team and just…it’s a good idea I think.”

He nodded strangely at her. “Kara, I get that I was in a coma for a long time, but my feelings for you haven’t changed,” he shrugged. “As strongly as I felt for you months ago, I--I still feel that way about you. It’s _you_ who’s pushing me away.”

She blinked at him, “I’m not pushing you away.”

“Kara, this is the first conversation we’ve had since I woke up in the med bay a month ago that’s lasted longer than 60 seconds.”

She opened her mouth to correct him, but realized that she couldn’t. “I just…I don’t want you to feel awkward about this. I mean, you missed a lot, but also you don’t remember stuff that you were a part of. You don’t remember conversations that we had and things that happened and if being around me is too weird or confusing for you--”

_He hadn’t been waiting long before he heard her turning her key in the lock, his eyes all the while trained out the window on the lights of the city. He turned around to face her. She hadn’t noticed him yet._

_“I hope you don’t mind I let myself in.” The reaction on her face let him know that she_ did _mind. She wasn’t happy. “I just wanted to say a few things before I lose you forever,” he started as he moved closer to her slowly, hoping to the gods that she wouldn’t kick him out before he said what he needed to say. “Because, I owe you a lot, but most of all, I owe you the truth.” When she didn’t speak, he took a deep breath and continued._

_“My name is Mon-El. I am the former Prince of Daxam. And I was a spoiled, useless person, but I didn’t know. Until I met you. I love being a hero because it means I get to spend every single day by your side. And I love the way that you’re honest to a fault.” It came out on a chuckle, but her face was steel, her eyes boring into his. “And that you fight for those you care for,” he chanced stepping closer to her, sliding slowly into her personal bubble. He could feel the tears burning at the back of his eyes, threatening to fall. A lump formed in his throat and he tried to talk around it. “And I love you. With everything that I have, I love you. You are so special.”_

_She nodded in agreement, “I know that. I deserve better than being lied to.”_

_“You do,” he insisted, “and I--I am sorry for that. You’re right, okay? I’m a liar and I really hope that you can still see the good in me. Please.”_

_She pulled her glasses from her face, dropping them on the table beside her and his heart sped up. The last time she had done that, her bright blue eyes sparkled up at him as she told him about how she could have it all and he thought for a brief moment he was in the clear._

_But she turned back to him and he knew it wasn’t the same. Her eyes were darker and they weren’t sparkling with excitement. They were dampened with sadness. A sadness that he had caused her. “Were you ever going to tell me the truth?”_

_He almost wished that he could have lied to her. He wished that he felt that he could have,_ would _have told her the truth. But he didn’t feel it. He didn’t trust himself enough to think that he would have told her everything. He could only shake his head, “I don’t know.”_

_He could see her fighting back tears and it was like a slap to the face. She looked away and all he wanted to do was reach out, to hold her, to take away her pain. But he was the cause of her pain and he knew she’d only push him away._

_“You just want things to be easy, Mon-El, but being a hero and falling in love, those are not easy things. They’re hard and they’re messy and they hurt sometimes.”_

_“I would never hurt you on purpose,” he insisted._

_“No, you won’t again.”_

_“Kara, don’t,” he pleaded, his nightmare coming true as her hand grasped the doorknob as she swung her front door open._

_“I can’t,” she said. “I can’t do this. No. It’s over.”_

_He swallowed against the lump in his throat and it burned. His eyes were stinging and he was barely able to keep himself together in order to leave the apartment. He knew there was nothing he could say; nothing she’d listen to anyway._

“Mon-El?” he heard and he saw her hand waving in front of his eyes. He shook his head, clearing the upsetting memory from his mind. He could feel the tears burning at the back of his eyes and it felt like he was back here that night, the night he swore he had never witnessed. “Are you okay?” she continued, a look of confusion on her face, concern in her eyes.

“I’m fine,” he choked out through the tears threatening to grab at his throat.

“Are you sure? I mean, you don’t look fine.”

“I’m fine!” he shouted at her, though he didn’t mean to. He felt a tear threatening to fall and he quickly rose his arm, his palm swiping at his eye to prevent it from escaping. His voice was softer, “I just remembered something is all.”

“Remembered?” her eyes widened. “Are you remembering things that happened before the accident? Like the memories are coming back to you now?”

“Yes, Kara. That’s what I meant by ‘remembering things’,” he answered shortly.

“Oh,” she nodded. “Has that happened before?”

“I’ve been getting bits and pieces since a couple of days after I woke up.”

He didn’t look like he wanted to say anything further, so she continued. “Well, as I was saying…I won’t push you away anymore, so long as we can just move forward. We’re broken up. We’re not dating anymore. That ship has sailed. We--”

“Kara!” he interrupted her, his hands raised, his eyes annoyed. “I get it. We’re not together. You say it every five freaking minutes. I understand. What’s making things weird is _this_! If you want to be friends, you’re gonna have to act like my friend. When I talk to you, you’ll have to talk back. When there’s a mission to go on, you won’t look for another partner, you’ll look for me. I’m not going to attack you with my lips or drag you into some intimate embrace, Kara. I’m not _confused_. I’m sad. But I’m an adult. I can handle that you don’t want me anymore.”

She stared up at him and for a moment he thought that her eyes were sad. “Mon-El…”

“Kara, friends. I’ve got it. Can I just…can I just go?” He asked with a heavy sigh. “I mean,” he paused, “was that all you had to say to me? Because I’d like to head back to the DEO. I’d like to lie down for a while. Remembering all that stuff…it just always makes my head spin.”

“Oh,” her eyes widened as she nodded, “uhm, yeah. I think…I think that’s it. That’s everything.”

“Okay, thanks,” he spoke softly as he turned and headed toward the door.

“Mon-El,” she called out to him. He turned around to face her but he didn’t say anything. “If you don’t mind me asking…what did you just remember?”

He was still blinking against the tears that wanted to show themselves when he said, “You breaking up with me.”

He didn’t wait for a response. He didn’t see her reaction. He didn’t want to risk the chance of falling apart in front of her; the same way that he didn’t that night when she had broken things off. He was out of the door before she even comprehended what he had said he’d seen in his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the love everybody!
> 
> Follow me on Twitter: @_ashleymaria_
> 
> If you haven't already, add yourself to the KaraMel Fandom Map and share the link (We're now at 94 pins!): https://www.zeemaps.com/map?group=2594021


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good evening, readers! (evening for me, good whatever it is to you wherever you are)
> 
> New chapter here...only a little time jump this time. It's also time for Mon-El to catch up on a few more things...

**Chapter Seven**

_October 2, 2017_

Since Kara had asked him to be friends, he’d done a pretty good job of avoiding her whenever possible. It’s not that he didn’t _want_ to be her friend. He wasn’t confused. He wasn’t weirded out. It was just _hard_. _So hard_. So hard to love her like he did and to have her walk out when he entered a room. To feel that flutter in his stomach when he looked at her and then have her avoiding his eyes and turning around. To go to high five her when they caught a bad guy only to have her pull her hand away nervously and mumble “nice job” or “great work” before walking away.

They were supposed to be friends, but it wasn’t really working. Albeit, it had only been a week since their conversation, but things just carried on in the same way they did before she had told him she wanted to be friends.

She continued to do most of her Supergirl jobs alongside J’onn. He worked closer with Winn and Alex.

She spent all of her free time outside of the DEO. He didn’t know where she went. He didn’t ask. He assumed he didn’t really have a right to know or be included anymore.

He just went to work at the DEO, sometimes grabbed a drink at the bar, sometimes he worked a bartending shift (surprisingly they didn’t give away his position behind the bar while he was unconscious), and then at night he’d go back to his bed in the DEO, get under the covers on the tiny cot and try not to think about Kara; what she was doing, how she was feeling, if she even missed him or thought of him at all anymore.

“But Mon-El, you’d be doing me such a _huge_ favour!” Winn insisted, shaking him out of his thoughts.

“Winn,” he started, “You know Kara works there again right?”

Winn nodded.

“She’s so…jumpy and-and awkward around me now. I don’t want to make her…uncomfortable where she works. She doesn’t even talk to me around the DEO anymore…”

“It’ll be fine,” he insisted, shoving the envelope at Mon-El again. “Just avoid the reporter bullpen and don’t talk to anyone. Just walk straight to James’ office and straight out again. Don’t even make eye contact with anyone. It’ll be fine.”

He sighed heavily, “Why can’t you just bring it to him?”

“Because you’re literally so fast. You can be there and back before I even stand up and get my jacket on.”

Mon-El rolled his eyes, “Fine,” he held out his arms as Winn slapped the envelope in his hands.

“All Hail Mon-El!” he bowed jokingly in thanks at his friend--

_“My son, you’re so brave, and your guard dines at the Gods’ Table. Hail Mon-El!” glasses were raised as he looked at his mother. “Prince of Daxam!”_

_There was a clattering of cutlery before Kara moved to stand, “Please excuse me. I have business to attend to on Earth. I have to go,” and she was away from the table before she finished her sentence._

_“Excuse me, I have to attend as well,” he stood before following Kara out._

_The teleportation beam dropped them back at the DEO balcony and Kara quickly darted inside._

_“So, you survived the first dinner with the fam…”_

_“You’re a liar,” she stated bluntly, her stare piercing._

_“I’m sorry, okay? Can you really blame me for wanting to just be Mon-El, regular guy from Daxam?”_

_“Oh, wow,” she sighed, turning away from him and moving further into the DEO._

_“Well, how do you feel about Daxamites? If you had known that I was the crowned Prince, would you have even talked to me?”_

_“You didn’t even give me the chance!”_

_“I tried to tell you so many times, okay? I really did,” his eyes were wide as they connected with hers and he struggled to get her to understand._

_“Is that supposed to make this better?” she asked, shaking her head at him._

_“Me being the Prince doesn’t change anything,” he assured her. “Not how I feel about you…”_

_“This changes_ everything _. It’s bad enough you lied, but you_ being _the Prince? I thought you were just born on a cruel planet, but you led it! You benefited from its cruelty. How about that Kryptonian emissary?” she challenged. “Your guard? Do you even feel guilty?”_

_He paused for a moment. How could she even ask him that? “Of_ course _I do.”_

_“I can’t even look at you.” And then she was gone, darting into the sky before he could even turn around._

“Hey, Mon-El!” Winn was standing in front of him, his hands waving in front of Mon-El’s face. He jumped and shook his head. “Dude, where’d you go? Are you okay?”

Mon-El nodded almost frantically. “Yeah, yeah, sorry. I’m--I’m good. I just--” his eyes connected with Winn’s. “I think I’m still remembering things.” Winn stared back at him confused. “I mean…remembering things from before the coma. The things I had forgotten. Kara was yelling at me…about being the Prince. And my parents…we were at dinner.”

Winn nodded in understanding. “Yeah, she told me all that. But, hey! This is good news. You’re remembering. And it sounds like it’s stuff that actually happened. Progress! Now,” he placed his hands on Mon-El’s shoulders, “Off to CatCo!”

Mon-El rolled his eyes at his friend again. “What’s in here anyway that’s so important?” he questioned, flipping open the envelope’s flap.

“Just some sketches and stats for the Guardian suit upgrades. We’re working on some stuff and I need James to proof the modifications before I start working.”

“Ahh, yes, the Guardian suit,” Mon-El nodded as he shoved the papers back in the envelope. “So, almost done _my_ suit?” he prodded.

“Man, you were in a coma for five months. We didn’t even know if you’d _need_ a suit. Besides James is human. He needs more tech protection than you do.”

“Yeah, yeah. You say that a lot,” he turned to leave.

“Your suit is next! I swear!” he called out to Mon-El’s retreating form.

* * *

He really was getting pretty good at avoiding her. She stuck to a pretty predictable schedule when she wasn’t working as Supergirl, especially since he found out (from James of course, not from Kara herself) that she had gotten back her job as a reporter at CatCo. At least that meant from 9:00am to 5:00pm, chances were that she would most likely be at the office.

Except for the hour from 12:30pm to 1:30pm when she chose to take her lunch break. At least that’s when she _used_ to take her lunch break…with him…back when they were together. Which they obviously weren’t anymore. He hoped that wasn’t another change he had missed out on.

When Winn had asked him to run those papers over to James, he knew his best bet was to hit CatCo during that hour. Since he’d asked him at 12:45pm, he’d agreed to help his friend out with his request.

He knew he could get in there and out in a split second. Plus, he wasn’t really _avoiding_ her. He was just looking for ways to make everyone feel less awkward.

* * *

“Let’s hurry up,” Kara said, tugging at Eric’s arm as she dragged him through CatCo. “I got caught up with that story. I know you have the rest of the day off, but I still need to be back here by 1:30pm.”

“Got it,” Eric nodded as they stopped at the elevator, his finger reaching out and pushing the call button.

The elevator _dinged_ almost instantly and Kara felt his hand on her lower back, angling her toward the elevator arriving. The doors were barely open when she rushed to walk inside, and she collided awkwardly with the person stepping out.

“Oh my gosh, I’m--” she froze, her eyes wide, jaw hanging open as Mon-El essentially fell out of the elevator upon colliding with her.

“Kara!” He was surprised (if not _more_ surprised than Kara) to see her standing there. She was _not_ supposed to be here. It was 12:50pm.

“Mike!” Her eyes shifted nervously. “What brings you to CatCo?” she tried to smile, but everyone noticed that it was an awkward one.

“Uhm,” he paused, noticing the tall blonde standing next to her. His mind went blank. _Why was he here again? Oh, right!_ “James!” he shouted awkwardly. He cleared his throat. “I’m dropping something off with James,” he gestured to the envelope in his hands.

“Ahh, I see,” she nodded.

“I thought you went on lunch around this time. I didn’t know you’d still be here…” he trailed off and that’s when he noticed that the tall blonde man was standing _very_ closely behind Kara, his hand resting on her back.

“Hi,” he stated, voice friendly, hand held out. “Mike, is it? I’m Eric. Kara’s boyfriend.”

Kara visibly cringed in front of him, but he didn’t notice. He was too busy trying to scoop up the pieces of his broken heart from the floor.

He held his own hand out, body moving on instinct as he moved to shake Eric’s hand. “Eric?” he repeated, “Nice to meet you.” He attempted a smile in Eric’s direction, his eyes avoiding Kara completely.

“How do you two know each other?” Eric asked, a bright smile on his face. He must not have sensed the awkward tension between the ex-lovers.

“Work!” Kara shouted before Mon-El could say anything to the contrary. Her eyes connected with his, wide and pleading with him to agree. “We used to work together. He was an intern here at CatCo for a bit.”

Mon-El saw how she was obviously trying to cover up their physical and emotional relationship from her new _boyfriend_ and he chose to go along with it. Clearly she didn’t want Eric to know anything about them being together in the past. He’d say whatever she wanted him to. He only wanted her to be happy.

“Well, James,” he said again. “I better go meet him. He’s been waiting for me for a while already,” he lied. He looked to Eric, “Again, nice to meet you Eric. Kara,” his eyes shifted to her and then quickly away, not that it mattered as she was avoiding his stare altogether. “I’ll see you around.”

He didn’t wait for either of them to respond. He just walked past them and deeper into the CatCo offices. He hadn’t wanted to come to CatCo _specifically_ because he didn’t want to see Kara and feel that new awkward tension they’d found with each other. It had never crossed his mind that she had moved on. Or that she would bring _him_ to her place of work.

He walked straight into James’ office, handed him the envelope from Winn and walked straight out without saying a word. His brain was barely functioning enough to guide him back to the exit.

He pushed the button on the wall for the elevator and (as patiently as he could) waited for it to arrive. A loud _ding_ went off and he stepped inside the elevator (making sure not to collide with anyone this time). The elevator door shut with a dull thump, his body shaking gently as the elevator shook upon dropping down the shaft--

_He felt her body collide with his, his chest bumping with hers, his body bouncing with the impact._

_“Why did you follow me?”_

_“Well, I didn’t want you to come up here by yourself!” her voice was worried, eyes concerned._

_“Well, maybe I wanted to come up here by myself.”_

_She furrowed her eyebrows at him, “Why would you want to beam yourself up to an unknown spacecraft?”_

_His eyes moved around the ship he recognized; the crowd around them all donning servants’ robes. “‘Cause…stuff…” he trailed off as Kara’s eyes moved about the room nervously._

_“Mon-El,” she spoke, her hand grazing his arm as she stepped closer to the strangers, “Mon-El,” she repeated and he turned around to follow her movements. The servants started to bow, one after the other all around them in a circle. Kara turned around to face him. “Are they_ bowing _to us?” she asked confusedly._

_“Mon-El?” a female voice came from the corner of the ship. Their eyes turned toward the voice._

_“Mother…” Mon-El said gently, eyes wide. “Father…” He’d known this was their ship, but he was still surprised to see both his parents standing there looking back at him. Kara’s eyes widened at the endearments that came from his mouth in a shocked tone._

_“My son,” his mother spoke._

_“We finally found you,” his father offered._

_He could see Kara out of the corner of his eye. Her eyes jumped from him to the strangers he called his parents. He didn’t move toward them. He stood still._

_His mother moved toward him first, “At long last,” she embraced him, arms wrapping tightly around his shoulders, her eyes slipping closed as she tugged his cheek next to hers._

_“I thought you were dead,” his voice was low, his eyes shifting between his parents._

_“We are very much alive, my son,” his father spoke, a hand reaching out to grip his shoulder. His parents smiled at him, but he couldn’t manage to smile back._

_“My apologies, Kryptonian, if you were hurt before,” his father spoke again, his attention moving toward Kara. “We were only defending ourselves against your attack on our ship.”_

_“Attack?” Kara’s voice was surprised as she stepped toward the family in front of her. “I seem to recall you shooting first…” she noted, her voice strained as she forced out a smile._

_“Shall we go through the entire history of Krypton’s carnage?” his mother spoke to her. Before she could say anymore, he had jumped in._

_“Mother, Father, this is Kara Zor-El, Hero of Earth. Kara, these are my parents.”_

_Kara smiled, her eyes brightening. He knew that first impressions were important to her and they already hadn’t started out on the best of terms. “Queen Rhea, and King Lar Gand of Daxam.”_

_He didn’t need to look at her to know her eyes were widening and that shock would be visible on her face._

_Her voice had a slight tremble as she turned to him, “Which makes you…”_

_“The Prince,” he finished for her, his eyes connecting with hers before she tore her gaze away._

_“Our Prince,” his mother stated, her hands moving to cup his cheeks. “Thank the Gods you’re alive.”_

_“And returned to us at last,” Lar Gand joined in, a hand landing on his shoulder again, moving him toward them. “Tonight, we feast!” he announced. Kara hadn’t moved and she hadn’t looked at him either._

_“I cannot stay. I--I’m also a hero. Well, trying to be, with Kara’s help.” Her eyes connected with his, but it was like she was looking right through him. “Anyway, we have to get back--”_

_His father interrupted him, a hand at his chest. “Son, you can’t leave. We searched the stars to find you.” His eyes dropped to the floor. He could already feel that he wasn’t going to get out of this. His parents_ always _got their way._

_“And we must get to know Kara as well,” Rhea added, holding out a hand in gesture to the girl._

_Another strained smile came to Kara’s face, “And I would love to know more about you.”_

_“I knew you wouldn’t stand in the way of a family reunion,” Rhea patted her son’s shoulder. “We have much to discuss!”_

_“You have no idea.” His eyes connected with Kara’s as she said it and--_

There were people crowding into the elevator around him and he shook his head. He looked up at the screen on the elevator wall and a bright red “LOBBY” glowed back at him. He’d already arrived at ground level. He pushed aside the elevator goers and stepped out of the box.

He stood in the lobby for a moment. He was having trouble catching his breath. He could feel his parents’ hands on him; their fingers sliding across his chest; his father’s hand patting his shoulder; his mother’s hands on his back.

More importantly he could _feel_ Kara’s disappointment; her anger, the betrayal. He could remember clearly seeing it in her eyes as they started to glisten as if she were holding back angry tears.

He knew it was another memory; he knew it had happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I sound a bit like a broken record, but you guys' reviews, Twitter comments, kudos/favouriting, and follows mean a lot to me! Thank you for reading and taking time to share what you think!
> 
>  
> 
> Follow me on Twitter: @_ashleymaria_
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	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi readers!
> 
> Chapter 8 here. Time for a little heart to heart between Mon-El and Alex. Love to hear what you think!

_October 2, 2017_

They lay next to each other, both sets of eyes staring up at the ceiling.

“So…that was awkward,” Eric threw out into the quiet room.

Kara rose up onto her elbows. “What?” she asked, voice surprised as she stared at him.

“No, no,” he insisted, “Not the sex,” he stated and she relaxed against the mattress again. “It was awkward meeting your ex-boyfriend today.”

She propped herself up on her elbows again. “What?” she repeated as she tried to feign surprise, though she was pretty sure she didn’t pull it off. “Mike…he isn’t my ex.”

“Kara,” he chuckled at her, “I’m not stupid. He was obviously _something_ to you. If you guys weren’t together, clearly you had something going on with each other.”

Kara sighed loudly.

“It was _very_ awkward. For all of us,” he laughed.

“You didn’t seem awkward,” she stated nonchalantly.

“I guess I’m good at hiding it,” he shrugged. “But I could feel his stare burning into my hand while he tried to decide whether or not I was worthy of a handshake. And you…you could barely even look at him.”

Her eyes remained trained on the ceiling above them as she fell back to rest on the mattress again.

“I sense there’s still some tension there…” he trailed off, his head turning towards her.

She shrugged her shoulders. “I broke up with him, so I mean, I dunno what he thinks or feels, but maybe he still has feelings for me. So what?”

“When did you two break up?” he asked nonchalantly, his voice curious but his face acting like he didn’t care.

“I dunno…like maybe six months ago…”

His eyes widened briefly, “Well, that’s uh…that’s a while ago.”

“It’s complicated,” she sighed. “I’d just rather not talk about it, if you don’t mind.”

“Okay,” he nodded.

“Like never,” she insisted, sitting up and clutching the bedsheets to her body.

He nodded again, eyebrows furrowing. “Got it.”

“‘Kay, thanks.”

His eyes fell to the watch on his wrist, “It’s almost 1:30pm. You have like five minutes to get back to work,” he stated. “You better hurry.”

Her eyes immediately scanned the room for her clothes. “Right,” she pecked his lips lightly. “I’ll call you later.”

He nodded as he watched her scramble away, picking her clothes up off the floor as she went, nearly tripping out of the room. She quickly dressed at superspeed when she was out of his sight before leaning against the wall at the front door to his apartment.

_Twenty-seven weeks_.

She knew exactly how long they’d been broken up. Twenty-seven weeks. Not that she’d been keeping track. Not on purpose at least. She didn’t know why her brain had kept count of the days as they went by.

Twenty-seven weeks. That was nearly seven months. That was a _long_ time. And was it still that obvious? That Mon-El had feelings for her? Well, _she_ knew that he probably did, but other people could tell, too?

She just wanted to _move on_. Friends! Was that so hard? That’s all she was asking of him. Why couldn’t he just accept that and just…act appropriately!

She huffed as she looked at her watch. Good thing she could fly because she was definitely going to be late…

* * *

 

His fists pounded against the reinforced punching bag in the DEO training room. He’d been remembering things constantly. Little flashes here and there. He’d finally recalled the day of the accident; the day his mother had tried to attack Kara and had injected him with a lead tipped needle right in the neck.

It was a memory he would have rather done without.

_“Mon-El,” Rhea had demanded, “you’re coming back to Daxam. Now.”_

_He laughed loudly. “I’m sorry, but that’s never happening.”_

_“You don’t actually have any say in the matter, son. You’re the Prince. Your presence is needed on Daxam. If we’re going to rebuild our planet, bring our people together, the Royal Family must be together. To set a good example.”_

_“A good example?” he stomped closer to Rhea. “That’s hilarious! You think we were a good example? The way we treated people? The way we forced them to do what we wanted, the way we took them from their families, the way we used them? That’s not a good example mother. That’s shameful. I’m ashamed of what we used to do; who we used to be.”_

_“That’s just the Kryptonian’s influence on you,” Rhea scowled as she eyed Kara standing in the background. “Once I get you away from_ her _, you’ll realize that we were saving them. We were giving them purpose. You’ve never had a problem with any of this before.”_

_“I didn’t know any better, Mother. You and Father…you raised me to be selfish and spoiled and oblivious. I refuse to live that way anymore. Not when I can actually help people. When I can stay here on Earth. When I can be a hero. Like Kara.”_

_“Ha!” she laughed loudly in his face. “A hero? A Kryptonian? Please,” she scoffed in Kara’s direction as she puffed out her chest and moved forward. “Your girlfriend,” she spat, “is nothing but a self-righteous waste of space.” His eyes widened at his mother. “Kryptonians…they self-destructed. Their planet’s end was their own doing and they all should have perished the day their planet exploded. The universe would be better off, Daxam would still be intact and you’d still be home, with us, in your rightful place.”_

_“Mother,” he started, turning his back on her as he moved to stand next to Kara. “_ This _is my rightful place. And I refuse to stand here and listen to you speak badly of Kara and her home and the people she lost. I’m not going back with you and Father and nothing you say is going to change that.”_

_His eyes connected with Kara’s as he continued to move toward her, and he saw a quick flash of worry flicker through her eyes._

_“Kara?” his voice was quiet as he questioned her. “Are you okay?”_

_She nodded, but she was cringing; her body curling forward in discomfort. “Mon-El,” she choked out as she pointed behind him and he turned around just in time to see his mother rushing toward them, two Kryptonite sais coming at them._

_He nudged Kara aside and she fell to the floor of the Fortress, his mother’s sais both falling down, one on each of his shoulders, their tips chipping off as they hit his impenetrable skin._

_“Kara!” he called out as he shoved at his mother and she stumbled backwards slightly, dropping one of the sais to the ground somewhere behind her._

_“I’m okay!” she shouted back at him._

_His mother came at them again and he knocked the remaining sai from her hand, the weapon flying somewhere off to the side as Kara found the energy to stand up again._

_He turned around and eyed her, his hands grabbing a hold of her shoulders as he steadied her. “You’re okay?” he questioned, the worry visible on his face._

_She nodded quickly. She saw Rhea coming at them again, but she looked like she wasn’t feeling the effects of the Kryptonite anymore. She furrowed her eyebrows for a moment and he turned to search for the source of her confusion._

_That’s when he saw the needle flying through the air and he felt it stab into his neck, piercing his skin before he dropped._

_The pain was unbearable; the injection site stinging, a burning pain shooting through his veins instantly._

_Then his mind went blank. White. Silent._

He didn’t remember anything after that. He wasn’t even thinking of lead at the time. He knew his mother was dangerous, ruthless even, but he had never imagined that she would attack him. He never imagined that she would do that to him and cause him to lose _five months_ of his life. Five months where he could have tried to fix things with Kara; tried to make her understand. He knew she was too trusting; too focused on finding the good in people. She didn’t see how dangerous his parents could be. She didn’t see how much he wanted to _not_ be like them.

At first he wished he would have warned her; warned her that his parents didn’t want to help him; that they only help themselves. They only look to use people for their own gain.

But often when he remembered things from before the coma, they came at him quickly, randomly, sometimes not making any sense at all; the order of events unclear to him. Then a while later he’d get the whole memory all over again, the pieces fitting together and finishing the puzzle that his mind had become.

After he’d recalled his mother’s attack, he’d remembered his conversation with Kara taking place weeks before. He’d remembered that Kara had originally told him to go talk to his Mother. He remembered their conversation taking place before the attack and he knew. He knew that at that time, she didn’t get how dangerous his parents were; how much power they had over him and their people on Daxam and how she’d likely use the same power and methods here.

_“Hey,” he started, trying to hide the nervous tremble in his voice, “I’ve been doing some_ very serious _research on human relationships and by now in the movie, the girl usually forgives the guy for whatever dumb thing he’s done…”_

_“I had a nice chat with your mother,” she interrupted._

_“Yeah,” he sighed, “Okay, uh, what’d she want?”_

_“You,” she stated simply, crossing her arms at her chest. “She wants to talk to you.”_

_“I’m not going back there,” he said, very sure of himself that it wasn’t a good idea._

_“Well, I tried.”_

_“What? That’s it?”_

_“What else am I supposed to say?” She held out her arms at him, “Nothing’s changed for me.”_

_“Just tell me what to do!” he pleaded. “Okay? Tell me what it is and I will fix it!” He was desperate, he could feel her slipping through his fingers and it scared him._

_“You can’t, okay?” She shook her head at him, “You can’t take back the fact that you lied to me. You can’t unring that bell!”_

_“Well, I can try.”_

_“Just forget about you and me for one second. Do you understand the second chance you’ve been given?” He rolled his eyes and shook his head at her. “You thought you were the last Daxamite and you’re not. Your people are alive. Your parents are alive. They need you. They love you. You don’t throw that chance away because many of us don’t get one. You…you’re a Prince. So start acting like it.”_

He shook his head as the memory faded. She didn’t understand. His parents were _nothing_ like hers. He didn’t _want_ that second chance with them. His life had only been _better_ since he left them. She was all he needed when it came to second chances. She made him better. She was his second chance; his second chance to live life right, to be a hero for others, to be a hero to people that while on Daxam would have been his family’s slaves.

_This life was his second chance._

His fists had been steadily pounding against the training equipment, the punching bag, the wall, really anything he could get his hands on, since he’d come back from CatCo hours ago.

_Kara had a boyfriend._

For how long? Who knows, but they looked pretty comfortable around each other. After all, _Eric_ had no problem introducing himself as her boyfriend. It was a pretty fluid statement coming from his mouth.

It made him shiver. He hated it. He hated everything about this. He hated the thought of Kara being with _him_. He hated that she didn’t tell him the news herself first. He hated that the first time he’d heard about it was out of the mouth of some random, mildly attractive, tall, well mannered…

He sighed heavily, his fists stopping and his forehead falling against the punching bag. He’d only met the guy for sixty seconds and he already could see that he was a nice guy; a good guy.

He hated that most of all.

He didn’t hate that Eric was nice. He didn’t hate that Kara had found a nice guy. He hated that he was a nice guy, so Kara was probably happy and therefore was no longer thinking about _him_.

She wasn’t debating in her head about what she’d be willing to accept from him in apology in order to take him back. She wasn’t looking to take him back at all. She was moving on.

_She had moved on._

He backed up and took in a deep breath before his fists went flying again, like steel blocks against the bag that he was sure would soon be rubble on the floor. He heard a voice in the distance and his fists stopped once again.

“You seem upset.” Alex stood on the steps of the DEO training room, leaning on her elbows against the railing and staring down at him.

His gaze rose as he looked up at her. “I am,” he confirmed simply.

She started to descend the stairs. “This is about Kara,” she stated and he avoided eye contact with her, but he nodded. “And Eric,” she continued with a knowing smile.

“ _Eric_ ,” he hissed. “How long has _that_ been a thing?” he questioned.

Alex shrugged as she stopped in front of him. “A while.”

“A few weeks while?” he prodded.

“A few months while,” she cringed as she informed him.

_Ouch_. That hurt. “So…this is like a real _relationship_ then?” he asked, his shoulders obviously falling as his elbows straightened, slipping out of fighting position. He rubbed at the back of his neck with his hand.

“I guess so,” she stated, her voice small. “But, you know Kara. She doesn’t really share her feelings too often. She hasn’t been talking to me about it. She hasn’t really been talking to anybody about it. She’s kept it all to herself, so I don’t really know how serious they are but--”

He cut her off. “Whenever nobody knows where she is…she’s with him isn’t she?”

Alex shrugged with a nod, “I guess so,” she repeated.

“This sucks, Alex,” he stated plainly as he sat down on a nearby bench. She sighed as she moved toward him.

“Do you remember anything else? From before the coma?” she changed the subject.

“Yeah, lots of stuff,” he sighed. “I’m pretty sure everything has come back to me. Well, everything important at least.”

“Well, that’s good!” she exclaimed, sitting down next to him.

“Yeah, it’s great, except that nothing I’m remembering is happy,” his elbows landed on his knees, his hands clasping together in front of him. “It’s like I’m watching a movie in my head where the lead character just has all this crap happen to him and there’s nothing he can do about it. And it’s a terrible movie, Alex. Full of pain and arguing and tears. A movie you’d want to turn off because it hurts too much. Except, I can’t turn this movie off, Alex. I have to sit here and watch, even when I don’t want to know what’s going to happen. Worst of all is that I _need_ to watch because I _need to know_.” He sighed, “I just don’t understand any of this.”

“Don’t understand what?” she questioned.

“I don’t understand why Kara and I couldn’t make this work. Why she’s so against _trying_. Why she won’t let me fix this. We were only broken up for a few weeks before…” he trailed off as he shook his head, his face falling into his hands.

“When Kara and I were younger, I got invited to a party,” she stated, crossing her legs in front of her, her fingers intertwining as she held her knee. “Kara…she wasn’t invited. The kid throwing the party thought she was weird, but _I_ was really excited about it. I had to tell her that she wasn’t invited and she was _so_ hurt, Mon-El. She was 15 and just wanted to be liked and have friends and these kids…they were trying to cut her out of the circle. See, she was so upset when I told her that I said that I wouldn’t go to the party.”

His head rose, “Alex, I don’t see the relevan--”

“Shhh!” she shushed him, “I’m getting there.”

He nodded as his face fell back into his hands once again.

“I told her I wouldn’t go, then the night of the party, I went into her closet, stole one of her dresses and snuck off to the party anyway.”

His head rose again, his eyes wide as he looked her. She laughed at his sudden interest in her story.

“And?” he prodded.

“Wouldn’t you know it -- I somehow got chocolate from a damn chocolate chip cookie on the dress and it didn’t come out for _weeks_. So, she found out I had lied and snuck off to the party without her and she was _so_ _mad_.”

He couldn’t stop his grin that spread over his face, imagining a tiny Kara fuming with rage at her sister.

“I’m talking _months_ , Mon-El. She wouldn’t talk to me at school, wouldn’t look at me at dinner. It was ridiculous. My mom got tired of it quickly, let me assure you. But then, she told me about Kryptonians. They value integrity.” She held her hand up horizontally in the air briefly for emphasis, “Like, top of the list of values. It was important and she was raised that way on Krypton. And here I was, swearing to do one thing and ten minutes later, breaking that promise. I mean, she grew up here, but it’s still in her nature; to be unforgiving at times.”

“I don’t think this story is helping anymore, Alex…” Mon-El whined.

She laughed, “I’m just saying,” a hand fell to his back, rubbing his shoulder in comfort. “It’s going to take a while, but she’ll get there. It just takes time.”

He shook his head at her. “Well, clearly she wants to take _time_ off from seeing me. She’s been avoiding me.”

Alex sighed heavily. “Mon-El, she just feels guilty.”

“For breaking up with me?” he crinkled his eyebrows at her.

“No…” she paused. “Because she feels like this was her fault.”

“What was her fault?”

“Your coma. Your mother attacking you. She feels like she forced you to go and talk to your mother and she thinks that if she hadn’t said anything, you wouldn’t have met with her, she wouldn’t have attacked you, you’d never have been poisoned and you never would have been put into that coma.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he huffed at her. “My mother would still have found some way to hurt me. Or to hurt Kara. It’s what she does. She was ruthless nearly my whole life. I wouldn’t expect that to change now.” He shook his head. “This was definitely _not_ Kara’s fault.”

“Maybe you should tell her that?” Alex suggested. “Besides,” she laughed lightly, “I’m sure you’ve been avoiding her, too.”

“I haven’t been avoiding _her_...” his eyes connected with hers and he saw her roll her own at him. “I’ve been avoiding the awkwardness of having to _interact_ with her.”

“So avoiding her,” Alex confirmed.

He sighed loudly. “Yeah, I guess I’m avoiding her.” He paused for a moment. “She wants to be friends,” he stated.

“So, be friends,” Alex suggested with a shrug.

“I can’t, Alex!” he exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air dramatically.

“Well, why not?” she furrowed her eyebrows at him.

“Because it’s too hard,” his eyes rose to meet hers and she could see the start of tears forming in his eyes. “I want more, Alex. I just--I know what it’s like to _be_ with her--”

“I’m sure you do,” Alex’s eyes widened, “but, no details please.”

He shook his head, “Not like _that_ ,” he stated, but then a smirk slid across his face, “Okay, well…yes, like that. But also just to be _around_ her. Her cuddling in my lap while we’re on the sofa watching a movie. Making breakfast for her in the morning and sitting in the kitchen in our pyjamas. Her little giggle when I make some stupid joke that’s probably not all that funny. Or that little crinkle in her nose that she gets when she smiles real wide. I never wanted to lose that stuff, and now…now it’s all gone.” A tear slid down his cheek and he very quickly wiped it away, not acknowledging it in front of Alex. “I miss it too much and I can’t have her in my life halfway. It just reminds me of everything we don’t have anymore.” He sighed loudly. “All I get now when I talk to her is either one of those, ‘I’m gonna punch you in the face’ looks, or one of those ‘deer in headlights’ looks.”

“I wish I could say it was gonna get easier, Mon-El,” Alex sighed. “I know it hurts, but wouldn’t you want to have her in your life and have it be a little hard sometimes, rather than not have her in it at all?”

His head lifted and his eyes met hers. “I dunno, I guess?”

“The hard part of it all…that’ll go away in time. Eventually, it’ll still suck, but it won’t be as awful as it feels right now. Keep in mind, you’ve only been out of your coma for a month or so. You never know, there may still be some more memories coming to you. And maybe there won’t be. I’m just saying that things aren’t necessarily back to normal yet. When things start to slow down for you…it might not hurt so bad. Just wait it out for a bit.”

He didn’t say anything back. His smile was just sad.

“Just, maybe give it a try for a while. I know Kara’s still mad, but if she wants to be friends…if she’s _asking_ to be friends, it’s what she really wants. Maybe it’s a step in the right direction.”

He nodded, but his face was still sad. Alex sighed loudly.

“You know, Mon-El, I’m not super into fate or anything, but if it’s meant to be, you’ll find your way back to her. You’ll find your way back to each other.” She patted him on the shoulder once more as she stood from the bench and turned to leave.

“Alex?” he called out to her as she got to the bottom step. She turned her head slightly as she continued to move. “Thanks for listening.”

She nodded with a smile as she continued on her way out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, THANK YOU for the reviews, Twitter comments, kudos/favouriting, and follows -- it all means a lot to me! Thank you for reading and taking time to share what you think!
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	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back, readers!
> 
> Shorter chapter here, but we're finally going to learn what's going on inside of Kara's head...
> 
> Enjoy!

**Chapter Nine**

_October 5, 2017_

Kara sat upright in the darkness, her back leaning against the headboard, her hands resting in her lap. She couldn’t sleep. Her mind just wouldn’t shut down. She glanced over to her right, her eyes running down Eric’s sleeping form. He was sprawled out on his stomach, his eyes shut, but his face turned toward her. He was snoring deeply, loudly, the sound of it reverberating inside her skull; the sound just piling onto the list of reasons why she couldn’t sleep.

The main reason though was that she couldn’t stop doing it. And worse, ever since Eric and Mon-El met, she’d been doing it _non-stop_.

Comparing.

Making comparisons between Eric and Mon-El.

It was around the time that Mon-El had woken up from his coma that she had first started to compare the two men. The longer she was with Eric, the more often she found herself running through the comparisons in her brain; what she saw in Eric and what she saw in Mon-El.

It wasn’t always this way. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Eric. _She did_. In the beginning, things were simple; back when they had met at Catco and shared a lunch break, a desk and a few kisses in between. To be honest, it was Mon-El lying comatose in the DEO that made her shove the thought of being with him out of her mind. Some days she was so sick with worry that focusing on anything other than Mon-El had helped.

And that anything was Eric.

The “non-stop” part of it all started after seeing the two men standing next to each other, their hands locked in a shake. It had caused her mind to start sizing them up a lot easier, their forms now standing out clearly and realistically in her mind as they stood next to each other. She wasn’t _trying_ to compare them; her brain just did it.

Physically there were obvious differences. Things that she liked at first; things that clearly separated the two of them in her mind. Things that made it easier to remove Mon-El from her thoughts entirely. Things that she could focus on to ignore her guilt over Mon-El's coma, her disappointment in the fact that he'd lied to her and her fear that he may never wake up.

She slid down to her back, burrowing herself under the comforter as her eyes scanned Eric’s face, her gaze moving down his body hidden by the sheets.

Eric’s eyes were so _green_. A bright green; emerald almost. Sometimes she just wanted the subtlety of Mon-El’s soft grey, often darkening to a blue-green when he looked at her and she could see the _desire_ he had for her.

Eric’s hair was blonde; so bright. Early on in their relationship she would sometimes turn over at night, expecting dark locks to be peeking out from under the sheets, and his light hair would startle her until she remembered; until she realized Mon-El was lying in the DEO and they weren’t in her loft in bed together. She'd have to get in bed second some nights, just to make sure she didn't forget to sleep on the opposite side of the bed; the side that Mon-El  usually slept on.

Eric was attractive, but _much_ taller, nearly towering over her most times, his chin easily able to rest on her head when she stood in front of him. Their torsos didn’t line up and he was a little lankier; his arms soft and gentle, yet his hold on her was tight. Tight, but instead of being comforting, it often felt smothering. All unlike Mon-El who fit her perfectly, just a few inches height difference between them, so she could look him right in the eye without really having to try. He was more built; his arms hard, but his hold on her always gentle, yet secure enough to make her feel safe and at home in his arms.

Now, all these differences just upset her.

Now the differences between them were so clear that they were blinking bright and neon in front of her eyes and it made her wonder how she’d even chosen Eric in the first place.

But she couldn’t deny the loudest, most glaring and blatant difference between herself and Eric: he was human and she was not.

Most times she’d still forget her own strength. She’d tap him on the shoulder and she’d see him wince briefly and she’d realize that she’d hit him too hard. He’d blow it off with a smile and a chuckle, but his eyebrows would furrow and she knew he would wonder how she was able to do that. She’d have to wait for him to move his hands first; tug on hers to lace their fingers together, slide across her shoulders to pull her close. She’d have to wait for his first move so that she could determine what to do with her own hands; to measure how much strength was needed for what he was trying to engage her in.

She’d even almost forgotten how to have sex with a human. She already didn’t have all that much experience with it, but after being with Mon-El, she had to be especially careful. Don’t pull his hair too hard. Don’t push his shoulders into the mattress too aggressively. Don’t bite his lips. He’ll need to breathe more often, so don’t kiss him too long. Slow down when he’s inside of you because a human can’t handle accidental superspeed.

Nothing she ever had to worry about with Mon-El.

She barely felt Eric’s touch. She _felt_ it, of course, but it was always such a ghost of a feeling; slight, gentle, small. She needed _more_. She needed _something_. She was beginning to wonder if that _something_ might actually just be Mon-El.

With Mon-El, she could bump his shoulder without worrying if she’d knock him flat on his behind. She could tug his hand toward her without worrying if his arm would fly out of its socket. She could grip his hand as they walked together without breaking his fingers.

Best of all, she could press her forehead to his without breaking his nose, bite his lips without piercing the skin, wrap her arms tightly around his neck as they made love, taking him inside of her without being afraid of falling apart around him.

She missed being able to let go. She missed being able to push him down into the mattress, riding him with abandon. She missed throwing her head back and just _feeling_.

She missed it. She missed all of it.

_She missed Mon-El._

She wiped at her face hastily as she felt a tear beginning to roll down her face. Maybe she was doing this all wrong. Maybe she was actually being too hard on Mon-El this whole time. Rhea’s words had been repeating over and over again in her head since the moment she had heard them.

_“You want to take Mon-El back to Daxam?” she had asked Rhea, even though she already knew the obvious answer._

_“Would you rather he stay here and learn by degrees that he’s not good enough for you.”_

_“You don’t know me.”_

_“I know your kind,” Rhea nodded. “I know what your integrity means. He’s Daxamite Royalty and you’re starting to despise him for it…”_

_“I don’t_ despise _anyone,” she insisted firmly._

_“But you think you’re better than him. Than us. Do what’s best for him. Tell him to speak to his parents. The people who love him.”_

_“What makes you think he’ll listen to me?” she shook her head._

_“Because he’s under your spell,” Rhea stated obviously. “And he has no idea how unforgiving your people can be.”_

Maybe Rhea was right. She was _so angry_ when Mon-El had betrayed her. She was angry when he refused to talk to his mother. She was angry when he acted like what he’d done wasn’t a big deal. She was angry sitting at his bedside waiting for him to wake up from his coma. She was angry when he woke up and she had to confront him about his lies that he didn’t even acknowledge.

She had been _so angry_ for _so long_.

Once they had tried to be friends again, it finally began to hit her. Sure, he lied to her, but he knew her so well. He knew she would be angry, and she was. Rao, she’d been angry for almost _eight months_! Even with all that anger, beneath it she felt like she was missing something in her life. She was missing _him_.

It was time for her to start listening. To start forgiving. Maybe if she was open enough and let him and their friendship back into her life, she wouldn’t feel like there was this large gaping hole inside of her. Her eyes flicked over to Eric’s sleeping form again. Maybe if she knew where she really stood with Mon-El, then she’d know what to do about her confusion over Eric. If she and Mon-El were _real_ friends again, she might not continue to compare the two men. She’d have all of the traits of each of them put together, including some of those of Mon-El’s that she missed.

Maybe it would be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading everyone! Please leave a comment or kudos if you have the time!
> 
> Twitter: @_ashleymaria_
> 
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	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again!
> 
> I was so overwhelmed by the SDCC craziness for all my fandoms this weekend (esp SG tho ahhhhh) that I had forgotten to update last Friday when I had originally planned to! Sorry for the long wait after such a short chapter.
> 
> Hope you enjoy this next one. Only 5 more left after this one! I'm sure you all feel like this is taking forever to get to happy, but we're almost there!

**Chapter Ten**

_October 8, 2017_

His eyes jumped all across the DEO computer screen, eyeing what the trackers were finding going on in the city. Kara hadn’t arrived yet, and he hoped to find some mission to go on without her before she got back. He hadn’t seen her since that day he’d met Eric and he wasn’t looking forward to talking to her. No doubt she would come looking for him eventually. At least, the Kara he _used_ to know would. He wasn’t so sure about the new, angrier Kara.

“Hi,” he suddenly heard her soft voice behind him and he cringed. He didn’t even hear her step up toward him. He knew they were going to have to have this conversation and he was pretty sure that he didn’t want to. He didn’t expect her to come and find him so quick, but nonetheless…

“Hi,” he turned around in his chair to face her, his eyes leaving the DEO tracking screens and awkwardly looking up at her.

They just stared at each other for a while; Mon-El obviously knowing what she wanted to talk about and Kara not knowing how to start.

“So, your boyfriend…” he started for her, the word like acid on his tongue, lead in his veins.

“I was going to tell you…” she insisted lightly, her voice near a whisper.

“Yeah, I’m sure you were. Eventually…” he scoffed.

She nodded quickly. “Of course I would have told you, I just…I was…”

“Waiting for the right time, I’m sure,” he finished for her.

“I sense that you’re upset…”

“Why would I be upset, Kara?” he sighed loudly, drawing the eyes of some nearby agents. “And why should you care about my feelings anyway? You don’t want to be with me, remember?”

“Mon-El, we might not be _together_ anymore, but I still care about your feelings. We’re--”

“Please, don’t say we’re friends, Kara.”

“But--”

“I’m remembering,” he stated plainly and she just stared at him. “I’m remembering things. From before the coma.”

“You are?” Her voice was surprised.

“I’m pretty sure almost everything. Everything important at least,” he paused. “I remember you meeting my parents…on their ship. How they treated you and the things they said…which I’m sorry for by the way. When we talked on the landing by the balcony before you left me standing there without giving me a chance to explain,” he nodded his head in the direction of the spot and she turned around briefly, her own memory of that moment flashing through her mind. “I remember that before that you came after me when I said I wanted to go up there alone.” Kara watched him as he revealed what he now remembered, pain visible on his face. “I’ve been remembering things all the time, Kara, and what it feels like to me is that we weren’t even friends _before_ the coma. Not after you ended things,” he shrugged. “I don’t know how you expect us to be friends now.”

“But, I want to be friends, Mon-El,” she spoke softly, stepping closer to him, aware of the listening ears of the agents of the DEO. “I want to try.”

“Kara,” he let out a sigh. “I don’t want you to want to be friends with me because you feel guilty.”

Her eyes widened, “What?”

“I know there’s a part of yourself that’s blaming what happened to me on you. I know you think that this was somehow your fault, but it’s not. Maybe it doesn’t seem like it to you, Kara, but I am capable of making my own decisions. I ultimately decided to meet with my mother. I decided to confront her. You just suggested it.”

“I gave you the idea,” she said simply, a hint of sadness in her tone.

“Whatever,” he shrugged. “We weren’t together. You weren’t threatening me. It wasn’t an order. I didn’t have to listen to you, you know. I did it because I knew she would come for me eventually. I’m just sorry that you were there and could have gotten hurt.”

She sighed, “I really do want to be friends, Mon-El. I don’t like this,” she moved a hand back and forth between them, “what we’ve become.”

He looked at her for a minute, scanning her face, his eyes darting up to hers to see if he could believe her.

“I didn’t tell you about Eric because I didn’t want to upset you or hurt your feelings or anything. I know this has all been really overwhelming and really hard for you to adjust to…the coma and the memory loss and all,” she paused. “And I mean, Eric and I…we’ve only been together a few months--”

“A few months is a long time, Kara,” he shrugged. “ _We_ were only together a few months, and I’d like to think that we had something meaningful. Something special,” he added mournfully.

She looked away from him. “I…well, I guess so, but…I just…if it didn’t work out, then I wouldn’t have told you anything about something that wouldn’t even matter anymore…”

“Well, are you guys…you know, getting very…into this relationship?” He asked it, but the second the words left his mouth, he knew they were a mistake. He wanted to take them back. He didn’t want to know.

She paused. She really hadn’t thought about it. She was only really taking it day-by-day; only starting to look at the full picture of their relationship recently, since he’d woken up from the coma and really started to get her thinking about it. She shrugged slightly. “Yeah…I guess we are.”

They were both quiet for a moment before, “So…how did you two meet?”

_“Excuse me?” Her voice was small, tinged with awkwardness._

_The man looked up from his desk, his bright green eyes connecting with hers, “Yes?”_

_“Snapper told me that this is my desk…” she trailed off as she bit her lip._

_“I’m sorry, what?” He cocked an eyebrow at her, a confused look on his face._

_“I’m Kara. I just got…re-hired?” She shrugged awkwardly. “Snapper said that this was my new desk.”_

_He scoffed at her. “Where am I supposed to work then?”_

_She just stared back at him, her eyes wide. At that moment, Snapper happened to be walking by. He stopped for a quick second, pushing his glasses further up on his nose. “Nicholls,” he spoke loudly, “You’re in that corner now.” His hand pointed outwards and off to the opposite side of the room. All that stood there was a tall table without a chair._

_He called back to Snapper as he walked away from them, “That’s not even a…” his shoulders dropped, “…desk.”_

_“I didn’t have a desk for months,” she smiled. “If you need the space to keep working, I--I don’t mind sharing,” she shrugged._

_He sighed as he shook his head, pushing back some of his blonde hair from his forehead. “I’m sorry. I was rude before. Deadline,” he smiled a crooked smile and she couldn’t help but return the gesture. He held out his hand to her as he stood up. “I’m Eric. Eric Nicholls.”_

_“Uh,” she reached her hand out nervously, his having been hanging in the air solo for far too long. “Kara. Danvers.” She smiled a toothy grin in his direction as their hands met. Surely his grip was tight, but she barely felt it. She did feel a little twitch in her belly though. A hint of excitement running through her._

_“Danvers?” he paused for a moment, his grip still holding against her hand. “I think I might have been hired to replace you actually. Reporter?” She nodded silently as he finally let her hand go. “A month ago?” She nodded again. “Yup, definitely your replacement,” he smiled awkwardly and she saw a blush starting to form on his cheeks. “I’ll just move my stuff out of your way so you can have your desk back.”_

_She shook her head as she watched him start to pile notebooks on top of his closed laptop. “No, that’s okay.” She assured him. “This actually wasn’t my desk before. I really didn’t have one. It’s fine. I don’t have a story right now anyway. Just…keep working.” He smiled back at her with a nod and she turned to leave._

The continuously bumped into each other at the elevators. They shared the same table in the breakroom. They crammed both themselves and their pens, papers, notebooks, and laptops on their tiny shared desk all day long. Mon-El was awoken from his medically induced coma and he kept his eyes shut. She thought it was fate. Fate (and those excited butterflies in her stomach) were telling her that Mon-El was her past and Eric was for the future.

But she didn’t tell him any of that.

“CatCo,” she nodded.

“Oh,” he nodded back. “So, you two work together then?”

“Mhm.”

“I see. I guess that makes sense…that he was at CatCo the other day. Well…okay, then maybe if we’re just able to casually mention it and don’t avoid talking about it together, maybe it all wouldn’t sound so…weird to me.”

She nodded again, “Okay.”

“So, you know, don’t be afraid to bring him around to hang out with him here or at the bar and stuff because--”

“He doesn’t know I’m Supergirl,” she cut him off.

He raised an eyebrow at her.

“YET!” she added quickly.

“Oh,” his eyes widened at her revelation. “And how’s that working out for you?” His eyes were surprised, and he almost smirked at her when he asked. _Almost_. He knew better. Not in public…not in the middle of the DEO and all its staff.

“It’s working,” she spoke.

She lied. She was pretty sure it wasn’t working. But she wasn’t about to tell him that.

“Good,” he nodded. He took her words at face value. He didn’t sense the trepidation in her voice. He sighed, “You know, I still care about you, Kara. I just want you to be happy. Whatever that means for you,” he spoke softly, his eyes leaving hers as he briefly recalled the memory that had come back to him recently.

_“I’m just happy,” she smiled at him, her nose crinkling, her eyes lighting up, her cheeks rosy. She was beautiful and she was sitting in his lap, smiling and happy. This was all he’d ever wanted._

_“Yeah?” It’s all he could think of to say. He was so smitten that his brain wasn’t thinking of anything but_ her _._

_“Yeah, like that dopey grin, butterflies in my stomach happy.”_

_“Mhm,” he hummed in agreement. He knew that feeling well._

_“Is that cheesy?” Her forehead fell to his shoulder and he felt those butterflies she spoke of, their wings flapping wildly inside of him._

_“It’s like a rom com on steroids cheesy.” She was looking back at him like this was also all she ever wanted and he knew that this was it. This was where he belonged. This was where he wanted to be. Right here. With her. “I’m happy you’re happy.”_

“I am,” she tried to smile and it _almost_ registered on her face. She wasn’t quite sure that it had made it out to the surface.

His eyes didn’t meet hers. “Even though you’re lying to Eric. And to yourself if you think that keeping this from him will work in the long haul. I mean…I would know.”

He didn’t see her eyes widen and her shoulders drop a little.

“So, friends then,” he said as he abruptly stood from his chair, his eyes meeting hers as she jumped slightly.

“Friends,” she held out her hand for him to shake.

He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Kara, I don’t want to cross the ‘friends’ line the second after we’ve established it, but…” his eyes flicked down to hers nervously. “Can I hug you?” Her eyes widened at his question and he rushed to explain his request. “I just…we used to do it all the time and I was just so used to doing it before and now nobody is really strong enough and sometimes you just need a good hug, you know? Like when--”

She cut him off as she pulled him toward her, her arms wrapping tightly around him as their chests collided and she held him against her. She wouldn’t dare say it, but she missed that, too; the way her arms could lock around him in a vice grip and he wouldn’t cry out, his back wouldn’t crack; he’d only grip her in return just as hard.

He sighed against her shoulder as his arms slid under her cape, wrapping tightly around her waist. She tried to bat away the butterflies in her stomach with her mind. She was _working_ toward forgiveness, but the anger should still be there, only just _starting_ to fade, right? But still, those butterflies remained relentless in her stomach, her anger long forgotten, at least for the moment as she held onto him.

Then he was pulling away with a shy smile on his face and she couldn’t help but notice that tears were forming in his eyes and it was like a super punch to the stomach. It shouldn’t have been, but she couldn’t deny it.

“I’ll uh…you probably have to go out there…uhm, I mean Supergirl is probably needed on the streets. So, I’ll see you later then?” he questioned softly, his eyes not meeting hers and she could only nod as she turned to leave to go check in with J’onn and Alex.

He plopped back down into his chair with a heavy sigh as he watched her go. He knew that this was going to be uncomfortable. He knew it was going to hurt. But that _really_ hurt. Clearly she was moving on. She didn’t need him in her life anymore, but at least she seemed to _want_ him in her life.

Maybe it was time to move on. Maybe Alex was right? Maybe they should just be friends. It was better than nothing. Maybe he should take what he could get and just hope that that _awful, painful_ feeling would slowly start to fade.

* * *

It was starting to all make sense to her; his lies, how judgmental she had been, and now, that she was doing the same thing to Eric. Unintentionally, of course. But how had she not noticed before this moment?

Kara could feel his eyes on her back as she walked away. Why did that conversation hurt so much? She really _did_ want to be friends. She wanted him in her life. She knew she was furious before, but as time went on, it was becoming easier to understand why he had kept the truth from her. His own mother did attack him and she had clearly been upset over the fact that he was Daxam Royalty.

Then every time he smiled that sad smile or his eyes avoided hers or he awkwardly stumbled over his words, she felt a pang in her chest. _She was doing this to him_.

She could still feel something for him, way deep down inside of herself. Feelings that she had spent the last seven months supressing. The butterflies in her stomach, the pounding of her heart, that feeling that overcame her when she was around him where she just knew that everything was _right_.

She still felt all of that.

But not with Eric. Not with her _boyfriend_. Not with whom and where she _should_ be feeling it.

Not anymore.

When she really let herself think about it, that feeling had worn off pretty quickly. At first, Eric, he was an option. Someone new, exciting, and different. But as time went on, she realized that he was _too different_.

When Mon-El was in the coma, she thought that she was looking for something different. In reality, she was pretty sure was really just looking for someone to replace Mon-El; someone who would take him off her mind. Someone who was able to give her the same feelings. Someone who elicited the same butterflies, the same pounding heart. But there was only one person out there who really did that for her.

Mon-El.

The man who was standing in front of her asking her to _hug_ him because he’d been feeling so alone.

She missed how he used to hold her, but most of all, she missed holding _him_. She missed being able to grab onto him, her arms gripping around his sides without the fear of crushing his spine. She could squeeze and tug and pull and he would just move closer and let her cling to him on those days that she really needed to. She knew it well how a simple hug could just bring you closer to people; make you feel less alone.

The first time he’d been unconscious and lying in the DEO med bay, back when nobody knew who he was or where he’d come from, she had promised him that he’d never know what it was like to be alone because she was here. Now, here she still was, only now she was pushing him away; leaving him to _be alone_.

But not anymore.

This was where that ended. They used to be friends, before they took the next step to lovers. They could be friends again. They’d just have to work a little harder.

So what if Eric didn’t know she was Supergirl? She could work up to that. She’d tell him soon. In the meantime, they could still spend time together as a couple with her friends. Maybe Mon-El was right. Maybe saying it out loud and bringing Eric around would make it all seem less weird. They’d been so separated in their relationship from her friends and her Supergirl life. Maybe trying to bring those two worlds together wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe eventually she’d be able to tell Eric about her secret and he’d accept her and he’d become a part of their group. Maybe having Eric and Mon-El in the same circle would make her brain realize that she had both men in her life. She didn’t need _romance_ with Mon-El. Friendship was enough, as long as he was _in_ her life.

But, she just couldn’t help but wonder if this was all so weird because deeply hidden inside of her she didn’t _want_ Eric to be a part of their group. Maybe she was trying too hard to force this into working. Perhaps, she didn’t see Eric in the same light anymore; not in the way that she used to. Maybe this was all a sign. Mon-El staying in his coma could have been fate telling her to try something new in order to realize that she’d had what she’d wanted all along; that Mon-El was who she really wanted. Perhaps it was all a way for her to realize that even though she was angry, she should try to understand his point of view; to understand why he did what he did; to make it easier to forgive him.

Forgive.

She could do it.

She understood now.

She understood that she was wrong about Rhea. She understood that he didn’t want to be the person he once was; the person his parents wanted him to be. He wanted to pretend that his past had never happened because he was ashamed of it. Everyone had something in their past that they wished they could forget.

He had lied to her because he knew she would freak out. And she did. And she pushed him away; something he had feared from the beginning of their relationship. She could see it in his eyes whenever she scolded him for doing something wrong, or crinkled her eyebrows at him when she was upset.

So now, they were going to fix this. Step one: they were going to be friends. This was going to work.

But there was still that nagging feeling in the bottom of her heart and in the back of her head telling her that she actually wanted more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading everyone! I'd appreciate any comments, kudos, bookmarks, tweets, etc. I love hearing you guys' thoughts!! 
> 
> I also love getting prompts and fic ideas! I know a lot of you have given me them (dear lord i have literally 30+ fics IN THE WORKS....some have chapters, some have paragraphs, some have just some scattered lines broken down with main points) but whenever I come down with a bit of writer's block, I jump to something new...and sometimes the prompts help shake it up in my brain. So feel free to send them my way! (also I'll be going on a vacation soon where there's no TV, no wifi, and spotty cell service so I'll need something to fill my time with!)
> 
> Come chat on Twitter: @_ashleymaria_
> 
> ZeeMaps Fandom Map (we're almost at 100 pins!): https://www.zeemaps.com/map?group=2594021


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi readers! Chapter 11 coming at ya!
> 
> Now, prepare yourselves, I'm going to be pretty conceited here and say that I'm very proud of these last five chapters here. I worked pretty hard on some of these paragraphs and ideas and I just feel like they were written very well. There's a lot of emotion and feelings and thoughts and getting into our karamel's heads (actually I don't think there's any dialogue in this chapter...) and I think it all flows pretty nicely. So anyways, I hope you all enjoy them as much as I do (if not....uhm, awkward).

**Chapter Eleven**

_November 1, 2017_

She looked happy.

He didn’t want to say anything. He’d lost the right to comment on her happiness when he’d lied to her. They were broken up now, so her happiness should be none of his business. He couldn’t fault her for being happy, but her constant good mood made him sad.

He used to be the one who made her happy.

He’d already recalled the memory, but he often found it flashing through his mind; tugging at his heart and causing the butterflies that remained in his stomach to flap their wings. The memory of when they were snuggled together on her sofa, her legs resting across his lap.

 _“I’m just happy,”_ she had said and that _smile_. It was almost as if she were nervous to say it; afraid that when the words slipped out, her happiness might float away. As if she hadn’t felt that kind of happiness before and she was scared that by mentioning it out loud, she might lose it.

But then a blush started to hit her cheeks and her eyes sparkled at him and she realized that she was safe with him; that he wouldn’t let her happiness slip away from her.

The second most often recalled memory of his was her heartbroken face as she asked him, _“Were you ever going to tell me the truth?”_ and he couldn’t give her the answer she wanted. His lie had come out and he’d stolen that happiness away from her; ripping it from her hands and her heart and he couldn’t seem to give it back to her.

So he was no longer the one who made her happy; she had someone else for that now. And that was okay. He shouldn’t be upset. This was all a part of moving on. They were friends now and that was better than nothing.

He’d met Eric a month ago and things had somewhat changed. Nothing for the worse at least, but it wasn’t perfect.

Kara still came to work at the DEO each day and even went on more missions with him. They’d talk at the DEO, about nothing really, but at least there was an exchange of words that previously, post-coma wouldn’t have happened. She didn’t avoid him in the hallways and she no longer turned the other way when he walked in a room. They’d succeed in capturing an alien and she’d willingly high five him. She’d praise him when he caught the bad guy first (which was rare, but it happened). She’d nudge his shoulder in jest.

A couple of weeks ago, Alex had invited everyone to her place for game night and he had been invited for the first time in what felt like years. Alex had extended the invitation to him, but Kara had at least been there. Eric was invited too, of course, but hey, at least he was still considered part of the group even without dating Kara. He hadn’t realized how much he missed these people and their stories and their laughter.

But he found himself spending the majority of the night forcing himself not to cringe when Eric wrapped his arm around Kara’s shoulders, or when he leaned over to kiss her cheek as she rolled a good move on the board.

But at least he got to see that smile again.

There was also that one night they’d all gone out to a bar (a human bar of course) for drinks and tapas and she had brought Eric along. He guessed that Eric fit in with the group. Well, they had to be careful about their chatter as Eric was unaware of the number of superheroes and secret government agents at the table, so it wasn’t their usual conversation. He sat across from Kara all night and tried to ignore the way Eric’s chair sat _so close_ to hers, one of his hands continuing to stay under the table all night. He could only try to force himself not to think of where that hand had settled on.

But, at least she was still here and she wasn’t pushing him away.

His eyes drifted across the room at the DEO; past the computer screens and the agents and the tech and his eyes landed on her. On her smile. Big, bright, toothy, excited.

Whenever she was around at the DEO (really the only constant place he knew he could see her), she had _that smile_.

Sometimes he’d catch her staring back at him with a more subtle grin before she’d shake her head and the smile would falter. He knew he was catching her thinking about Eric. Then he’d see that smile differently; properly. It was one of those smiles that accidentally slid onto your face when you thought of the one you loved; when your brain took you away and distracted you with thoughts of them. Then he’d realize she was likely not staring at him, but rather _through_ him, like when you forget to focus your eyes on somewhere safe before drifting away with your thoughts.

The thought of that beautiful smile being for a man other than himself made his stomach churn and he got this awful feeling in his chest; like his heart wasn’t beating properly anymore, like that lead was back inside of him. He’d smile a polite, but undoubtedly forced smile back at her if their eyes connected before he would leave; go anywhere else where he didn’t have to see _that smile_. That smile that he used to adore which now made him regret ever relating it to her love for him.

* * *

She wished she was happy.

She _thought_ she was happy with Eric, but the more she thought about it, the harder she tried, the more she realized that this time was different. This “happy” was different. It was less like happy and more like content. Or maybe indifference? Companionship versus a relationship. She spent time with Eric, a lot of time over the past few months, and she enjoyed that time with him, but it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t like it used to be with Mon-El.

Mon-El made her happy. _So happy_. Still, after everything that had happened before and after the coma, he still made her happy. Especially after they had agreed on being friends, he’d met Eric and they’d put everything out into the open. Now that he was put in her path again, she was _starting_ to feel that real, genuine happiness again.

She couldn’t contain her grin when they were working together at the DEO; her smile spreading easily across her face when she high-fived him for catching the bad guy, which was happening a lot more often now (he was getting a lot better at this superhero thing). She no longer put off talking to him, even joking with him every so often, a slight shoulder bump that would usually (exaggeratedly) send him flying in the opposite direction with a laugh. He’d talk to her and his voice no longer seemed awkward. He’d get this little grin on his face and his eyes would light up and he just seemed so _happy_.

She wished she could feel that way every day again; have that unbridled need to smile, where you just couldn’t hold back your grin because you were just happy to be here, happy to be alive, happy to live your life with everything you had.

They had all gone to Alex’s for game night recently and she remembered his bright smile when he ended up winning their game of Monopoly. She also tried not to cringe at James’ choice of board game. Monopoly made her mind go back to that time Mon-El had almost died; the time the Medusa Virus had invaded his lungs and he had to be locked away, a one-sided game all that they could do to entertain themselves while they waited for answers. The one time before he’d collapsed, before he’d kissed her gently for the first time. He seemingly forgot about all that when the Monopoly board was brought out as he barely reacted, meanwhile her heart jumped into her throat before falling to the pit of her stomach. But he didn’t forget the rules of the game. He had high-fived most of the table when he won, but she didn’t raise her hand. Eric’s arm was wrapped so tightly around her shoulders she was sure that it wasn’t a good idea at the time.

Then there was that night Eric suggested they hang out with her friends so he could get to know them. When she had brought it up to Winn, he suggested a bar that wasn’t filled with aliens for the get together. Mon-El spoke when spoken to, his hand wrapped around a glass of club soda as he listened to everyone recall stories about their lives the last few months, most of which he was comatose for and didn’t remember at all. Nobody told Eric where Mon-El was or why he didn’t recall any of the memories everyone reflected on. He didn’t need to know that. She just watched his face light up with every story. There was that grin on his face like he finally was getting back to where things were before the accident.

She wanted to enjoy herself, but Eric was eating with one hand, and he had the other resting on the inside of her thigh. She knew everyone could sense it. All night she saw people’s eyes following his arm to where it led under the table. She felt uncomfortable and restricted, so she plastered on a fake smile and hoped that Mon-El was having too much fun with all of their friends’ stories to notice.

Not that it should matter. It shouldn’t matter what he thought about her relationship with Eric.

Often times she’d watch him from across the room at the DEO. When he wasn’t hanging out with Winn, he would usually be talking with Dana or Vasquez. He’d tell them jokes; jokes he no longer reserved for her; jokes she didn’t get to hear anymore. They would throw their heads back in laughter, cackling at whatever ridiculous, but no doubt adorable thing he had said to them and she found herself smiling as she watched him, even when she told herself not to.

He must often feel her staring, feel her smiling in his direction because he _always_ caught her; his eyes connecting with hers even at a fair distance. She’d have to shake her head and knock herself out of it and back to reality. He would smile back at her in a way that she hated to see; as if he were apologizing for making _them_ laugh instead of _her_ laugh. And then he’d leave. He’d disappear for a half hour or something as if he were avoiding her, afraid that she would yell at him for making jokes on the job.

They’d been working on this friendship thing and it was really putting him back in her orbit. She was trying really hard not to compare anymore, but she was thinking of him a lot more frequently after trying for so long to put him out of her mind. She only started thinking about their relationship again once he’d woken up. When he was in the coma, all she could think about was the anger and the betrayal and the lies. She didn’t remember the longing looks, the comforting touches, the sinful smiles. The things that she loved. The things that she missed.

It was like when Mon-El was in that coma, when he was asleep, he was no longer an option. Those looks, those touches, those smiles, all no longer attainable. She couldn’t be with him, so she couldn’t have those things. She just had to change what she wanted, what she deserved, what she could have. But now, he was awake and he was standing right there in front of her, but he was still no longer an option. She had a boyfriend. She couldn’t let herself acknowledge a possible relationship with Mon-El. Not while she was supposed to be with Eric. Not while she had no idea how Mon-El even felt about her anymore; if he even still thought about her in that way.

After their decision to be friends, he’d never mentioned them becoming a couple again. He never said that he wanted them to be together. He never said whether or not his feelings for her had changed. It had been over a month since he’d told her that he wouldn’t go after her; that he was an adult and he could understand her decision to end things. Now, she had no idea if he still felt that way: if he wanted to be with her but refrained from talking about it because he thought it might make her angry, or if his feelings for her had gone away entirely. He did look happy after all. He looked like he had accepted their breakup; that he had actually moved on from her.

She couldn’t do anything. He wanted to be friends and as the days went on, she found that more and more difficult for herself. She didn’t know if she could do it: be friends with him. Especially when one part of her, a part _way_ deep inside of herself was screaming out that she wanted more than that.

But then the other part of her would say that she had Eric. She was in a relationship where she could keep searching for those things; those longing looks, those comforting touches; those sinful smiles.

This time it would just feel different. It would just be different.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading everyone! I'd appreciate any comments, kudos, bookmarks, tweets, etc. I love hearing you guys' thoughts!!
> 
> Also, please let me know if you would like a Twitter notification when I update or post a new fic. I know some of you don't get alerts because you don't have accounts (or don't sign up for them), so let me know and I'll add you to the list!
> 
> Come chat on Twitter: @_ashleymaria_
> 
> ZeeMaps Fandom Map (we're almost at 100 pins!): https://www.zeemaps.com/map?group=2594021


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back everybody! Chapter 12 here. Minor time jump. Once again we're getting to see into Kara's head. She's having a bit of a hard time again...

**Chapter Twelve**

_November 15, 2017_

She wasn’t supposed to be comparing. She had told herself not to do it; not anymore. But it was so difficult. She was lying on Eric’s chest and she could just _feel_ the difference and it was all too much. It made her head spin.

Her head was spinning for a number of reasons.

He had asked her to move in with him today.

She felt like it came out of nowhere. She’d been so busy trying to figure out how to balance a relationship with Eric and a friendship with Mon-El that she felt _ambushed_. Then again, they had been dating for almost five months and she spent most nights with him at his place. It was almost as if they were already living together. They were eating lunch when the topic had come about, the words hitting her ears and she thought she was going to pass out.

_“What?” she returned._

_“Move in with me,” he repeated. It wasn’t really a question. It didn’t even sound like a suggestion. She’d like to think that that was what threw her off._

_“What’d you mean, ‘move in with you’? Like…into your apartment?” She knew her eyes were wide, blinking, deer in headlights._

_“Where else, Kara?” he shook his head at her with a smile. “Of course into my apartment.”_

_“Eric…I mean…” she shook her head as her eyes fell to her plate. “I think that I have to think about this a bit.”_

_“What’s there to think about?” he furrowed his eyebrows at her._

_“Isn’t it kinda soon for that?” her eyes chanced a look up at him. “I mean we’ve only been together a few months…” she tried to justify._

_“Come on, Kara,” he prodded but she didn’t say anything in return. “Just think about it right now. You’re always coming over anyway. We’re always there together. You hate that crappy loft of yours anyways…”_

She loved her loft. He, however, thought she hated her loft. She never took him there. She never let him stay the night. The one time he visited her, she lied and told him she was on her way out and she didn’t invite him in. She didn’t like his apartment. In fact, she _hated_ his apartment. It was small and full of junk and rarely, if ever, clean. It was dark and he only had a single sofa to sit on. They ate any meals on foldable tables he’d prop up in front of the television. She never mentioned it, but it all bothered her.

But she _couldn’t_ take him to her loft. Her loft where all she saw was _Mon-El_. Mon-El making her breakfast. Mon-El sitting on the sofa with his feet on her coffee table, laughing obnoxiously loud at some old movie on TV. Mon-El on top of her, the two of them rolling around together in her bed.

Memories she shouldn’t want to keep, but was struggling to hold onto.

Now lying here in the dark with Eric, her mind was making comparisons again. This time, it wasn’t all the good that each man offered. It was what Eric was lacking; what he was missing that she knew Mon-El had; aspects of his personality that suddenly really started to rub her the wrong way.

She turned her head ever so slightly on his chest, her eyes darting around the bedroom. She _really_ didn’t want to live here. She shivered slightly and he stirred beneath her.

“Are you cold?” his gruff voice asked, and she felt the sound rumble through his chest.

“Yeah,” she mumbled the lie. Sure, she’d pretend that was the reason.

He pulled the covers higher, tucking them around their bodies. “Night,” he whispered and seconds later he was already fast asleep again.

She was never _actually_ cold. She didn’t get cold. But she couldn’t tell him that.

Mon-El, however, would know that. He would take one look at her and know she was uncomfortable. He knew that she liked to lie on top of him when they had a conversation; their voices at whispers, mouths but a breath away from each other as they tried to stay in bed as long as possible on a Sunday morning. But not at night when they should be resting comfortably. Not when they could squeeze in what few hours they had for sleep before the next crisis would hit. The next crisis that _always_ hit. The next crisis where they would need their energy; need to be rejuvenated in order to help save National City.

Instead, Mon-El knew she liked to spoon; his arms wrapped around her tightly, protecting her in sleep after she spent the day protecting the city, his heart in his chest beating against her back in time with her own. The one time in the day that she felt truly safe to close her eyes and drift off to sleep.

Eric didn’t like to spoon. He really didn’t even like to touch her while they slept. Rather, they usually just lay next to each other; a foot of space between them. He often faced the opposite way, flopped down on his stomach while she lay curled in on her side. The times he actually _did_ hold her, the anomalies like tonight, his hold on her was too tight. Not strength wise, necessarily, but she just couldn’t _breathe_. His grip was always too tight for her to slip away; at least not without sort of using her more than average strength. Then she’d not only have to explain _how_ she managed it, but _why_. So she stayed put those nights.

There were times when she tried to get away. Times where she had to make up random excuses for leaving. Quick explanations for how she got across the city so fast. But she was running out of reasons to run away or to return back to work without him or to take a quick walk to the store to pick up something. She could tell he no longer believed her when she left, but she didn’t know what else to do; what to say. It wasn’t his fault he was clueless. She hadn’t told him much about herself. He still didn’t know she was Supergirl. He didn’t know she had powers. To cover her behind, she spent a lot of time uncomfortably feigning comfort in his arms.

She didn’t understand why it took so long for her to realize it; to realize that she had been faking things with him. Denial. Denial of her feelings for someone else.

_Mon-El_.

With Mon-El back in her life, she could easily see all those times she was in denial. The times she’d accepted Eric and the things he did or the things he said even though she was smarter than that and better than that.

The time that the denial had hit her the hardest was when she recalled that night a few months ago when Eric had taken her out to an Italian buffet for dinner.

His eyes had looked at his plate, then moved to hers before sliding up to look at her. _“You eat a lot,”_ he’d commented.

He didn’t mean it in a rude way. At least, at the time, she didn’t think he did. His voice was laced with surprise; as if he couldn’t believe she was capable of eating so much in one sitting. It sounded like it was just meant to be a comment, not a critique, but nonetheless, it still felt like a punch to the stomach. She had been Supergirling all day and hadn’t had the time to have a decent Supergirl-sized meal.

When he had said it, her eyes darted up to him before glancing down at her third plate again. She smiled a shy smile and only finished what was left on her plate in front of her.

When he dropped her off at home that night, she’d ordered three pizzas and ate them alone and in silence, standing up and leaning against the table in her kitchen as she tried not to cry; tried not to let it get to her.

Mon-El never commented on how much she ate.

The one and only time he ever did was over breakfast. She’d surprisingly easily eaten nine pancakes and six slices of bacon and he’d leaned over from his chair, one hand pulling up her pyjama top, the other hand stroking across her flat stomach.

_“Humans must envy you,”_ he had said, his eyes filled with nothing but admiration and love. _“You can eat like that and your body remains perfect.”_ She’d blushed and he’d tossed the rest of the bacon from his plate onto hers as he leaned over and kissed her cheek.

She felt a tear roll down her face and land on Eric’s chest. She shifted above him in attempts to cover it up, her hand running across her face to make sure no more slipped out. Somehow he’d noticed, stirring beneath her again as he blinked at her in the darkness.  
  
“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she sighed. “I’m fine. Tired. Just go back to sleep,” she told him.

“‘Kay,” he mumbled, his head turning as he drifted back to sleep easily.

_“I’m just tired,”_ she would often tell him and he would assume she was telling the truth. Why wouldn’t he?

Mon-El knew everything about her and Eric, she now realized, had no clue.

It only made more tears fall. Mon-El would notice she was upset. He’d wipe her tears, kiss her lips and tell her that even Supergirl needed to cry sometimes. He’d rub her back and whisper that it was going to be okay; that she should let the tears out because she was safe with him. He’d hold her tight while she cried and she’d feel better. She always felt better in his arms. He wouldn’t make her tell him what was wrong, but he’d be ready to listen if she needed it.

Not that Eric was a bad guy. He really wasn’t. He just didn’t understand. Not the way Mon-El used to understand. Not the way that Mon-El would _still_ understand.

But instead of trying to explain things to Eric so that he _could_ understand, she placed her hand on his chest, directly beneath her eye and her cheek, hoping that her tears would only hit her hand instead of his chest, and she let them continue to fall.

Mon-El hadn’t brought up still wanting to be in a relationship with her, so she feared that she had lost her chance. He’d moved on. He wasn’t interested in her, in them, anymore. She didn’t _need_ Eric. She wasn’t even sure if she _wanted_ Eric anymore. Her brain was just so jumbled and confused. But if she broke up with Eric, was she quitting? Was she giving up on something too soon, on someone who really cared about her, without really trying to make it work all because her mind just wouldn’t stop thinking about Mon-El? She wasn’t a quitter. She _could_ make this work. She could at least really give it a try? It was working for the months before Mon-El woke up, wasn’t it? Eric obviously still wanted to be with her. At least he hadn’t said any different…

Besides, if she broke up with Eric, Mon-El might think that it was because she was interested in _him_ , and if he no longer felt the same way about her, that would make things awkward between them. Again. And they were finally just getting on the right track with their new attempts at friendship.

She closed her eyes tight, her tears beginning to fade as she forced her mind to go blank so that she could drift off into a fitful sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Broken record here: I love comments, kudos, bookmarks, tweets, etc. so please do any or all of the above. I love hearing you guys' thoughts!!
> 
> Twitter: @_ashleymaria_
> 
> ZeeMaps Fandom Map (we're almost at 100 pins!): https://www.zeemaps.com/map?group=2594021


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!! We're in the home stretch here with this being chapter thirteen, but we still have about 11,000 words to go. This is a bigger chapter at over 5,000 words, so settle in and get comfortable!
> 
> We share a radio at work and one of my colleagues often has a country music station playing. Because of that, I've been listening to a lot of sappy country music songs, which I love because since the age of two I've been un-ashamed-ly (that's not a word, is it?) a country music fan. 
> 
> The songs added in here are "Every Time I Hear That Song" by Blake Shelton (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfZfURgx9b0) and "Make You Miss Me" by Sam Hunt (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcaRRpUq7aI). You don't really need to play them while reading, but just in case you all want to be able to reference it in your mind while you read...

**Chapter Thirteen**

_November 16, 2017_

_There’s something ‘bout yesterday_   
_How fast it all flies away_   
_I don’t know what it is about a goodbye kiss_   
_That makes you wanna stay_   
_We were crazy, then we were over_   
_We were breaking up, making love, a runaway rollercoaster_

He rolled his eyes exaggeratedly. Of course a song like this would be echoing throughout the bar. Of course nearly every person in this bar was coupled up and being all lovey dovey in his face. And of course _they_ would come here, of _all_ places.

It was a Thursday night. Why were they even out? Didn’t they all have work in the morning? Shouldn’t they be going to sleep soon? It was almost 10:00pm. Why were they still here?

He watched their group out of the corner of his eye. Kara sat with James, Alex, Maggie, Winn and Lyra in a corner booth. They were laughing it up. Having a great time. While he stood here working, his hand moving up, across, down, over on the bar top with a rag, trying not to think about how much he wanted things to go back to how they were before. Back when he would sit at the same table as them without needing any invitation to join: Kara’s hand on his thigh, his arm wrapped around her shoulder, her whispering in his ear, her face falling into the crook of his neck when she laughed.

_Every time I hear that song_   
_I’m standing in the pouring rain_   
_On your front lawn and oh-oh-oh_   
_I still think about you oh-oh_   
_Every time I hear that song_   
_It’s like the first time it came on and oh-oh-oh_   
_I still think about you oh-oh_   
_I still think about you_

Looking on the bright side, at least if they were here at the _alien_ bar, Eric would be nowhere to be found since he still hadn’t been clued in on Kara’s secret. He grinned to himself. Well, he had to appreciate the small victories now.

Alex slid in front of him, landing on a stool as she sat and watched him. He stumbled back a step in surprise and she laughed. He’d been so out of it, he didn’t even see her leave her table and move toward him.

“Sorry,” she apologized for startling him. “How’s it going?” she watched him while he continued to busy himself with wiping down the counter. She’d seen him doing it in the same spot for nearly twenty minutes. The counter was definitely already clean and it wasn’t going to get any cleaner.

“Same old,” he sighed with a shrug.

“And things with Kara?” she asked abruptly.

_There’s something in the bittersweet_   
_Feeling of a memory_   
_Right there in the moment_   
_All I ever wanted was you and me_   
_We were crying, we were wasted_   
_We were dying when they played it_

His eyes rose from the table top to meet hers before they drifted to look at Kara back in the booth. “Cut right to the point, huh?”

She grinned back at him. “Well, you don’t look as miserable as you did a few weeks ago. So I’m assuming things are _better_?” She nodded her head in Kara’s direction, “But I can still see you staring at the back of her head like a sad puppy dog from where I’m sitting…so I know it can’t be _that_ much better.”

_Every time I hear that song_   
_I’m standing in the pouring rain_   
_On your front lawn and oh-oh-oh_   
_I still think about you oh-oh_   
_Every time I hear that song_   
_It’s like the first time it came on and oh-oh-oh_   
_I still think about you oh-oh_   
_I still think about you_   
_Oh, I still think about you_

“Well, it’s not _worse_ I guess you could say. I mean, we’re friends now.” He paused.

“And…?”

“And that’s it. We’re friends.”

“And you still want more,” Alex nodded.

“Obviously!” he dropped the rag as his hands flew to his head, his fingers interlacing as they rested there. “Alex, all I want is to be with her again,” he shrugged.

“Mon-El,” she sighed, “Maybe you should go and tell her that then.”

“But, Alex, look at her,” he nodded at Kara. She was throwing her head back in laughter, her hand slapping Winn’s back as they all laughed at something he had said. He couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across his face. “She’s so happy. If she doesn’t feel the same way, why would I burden her with my feelings again. The last time I told her how I felt, it freaked her out. It was so awkward.”

Alex chuckled lightly, “But I’m pretty sure a little while _after_ you did that, you guys ended up together…”

_There’s a sound track in my mind_   
_That takes me back in time_   
_When I hear that melody_   
_I think about you and me_

“Well, okay, yeah, but _this time_ , Alex…she has a boyfriend. She’s happy. I can’t just go and throw all that at her when she’s in a relationship and--”

“Mon-El,” Alex interrupted. “Look at her.”

His eyebrows furrowed as he turned his head in Kara’s direction. Her smile was spread wide across her face, her hands wrapped around her usual club soda as she listened intently to a story Maggie was telling everyone at the table.

“She looks happy,” he repeated, rubbing a hand across his neck, his other hand dropping to the bartop.

“Mhm,” Alex agreed. “Where’s Eric?”

_Every time I hear that song_   
_I’m standing in the pouring rain_   
_On your front lawn and oh-oh-oh_   
_I still think about you oh-oh_   
_Every time I hear that song_   
_It’s like the first time it came on and oh-oh-oh_   
_I still think about you oh-oh_   
_I still think about you_

“Gods! What is with this _song_?! It’s driving me crazy.”

Alex laughed loudly. “Mon-El, _focus_. Where’s Eric?” she repeated.

“Alex, you know he doesn’t know her secret. He wouldn’t be here. He _couldn’t_ be here.”

“So, why does Kara keep _coming_ here? _I_ know how you feel, Mon-El. _I_ said that we should all go to that same bar we went to with Eric last time. You know…the regular, _human_ bar? That way you wouldn’t be forced to stare at her from afar while sappy country music songs blasted in the background,” she chuckled lightly as he rolled his eyes at her. “She said not to bother; that we could come here. I asked her if Eric was busy and that’s why he couldn’t tag along and she just said that she wanted to come here. Does that make any sense to you?”

He blinked back at her, but didn’t respond.

“Now,” Alex turned around in her stool. “You see that smile? Where was _that_ smile at the regular bar that night? Or at our game night?” She turned back around to look at Mon-El.

“Alex…what are you saying?” he asked, his eyebrows staying furrowed in confusion.

“I know my sister. She tries to put up a good front. She’s good at hiding and supressing her true feelings. She just doesn’t like expressing any of that kind of stuff; she doesn’t like saying it out loud or something. I’m just saying…not that she’s said anything to me, but…she may _look_ happy, but looks aren’t everything, Mon-El.” She paused for a moment. “Maybe _you_ should just come and join us…”

He blinked back at her again, “I have…to work,” he hooked his thumb behind him, gesturing to the bar.

“Okay,” Alex shrugged. “I’m done meddling. For now. Just…think about what I said. And send us another round, would ya?”

He nodded as she walked back to the booth. He stood there for a moment. What did that even mean? So, Kara _wasn’t_ happy? He watched her again, his eyes drifting to the back of her head once more as he watched her hand flip some of her blonde hair back behind her shoulder. Alex moved toward the table, her hand landing on Kara’s back briefly and she looked up at Alex with a smile. Alex said something to her and she nodded in response.

Kara turned around and her eyes connected with his. Even at this distance he could see them sparkle at him and it made his heart flutter in his chest. She smiled at him and his hand lifted in a small wave at her and her smile grew as she moved to wave back. Gah, he missed when she would direct that smile at him every day. Maybe Alex was right? Maybe he should just _tell her_. What would be the harm? Well…things could get really awkward between them, but he wasn’t positive that things weren’t _already_ awkward.

Maybe he’d just tell her tomorrow. That’s usually how things went, right? Sooner is better than later?

* * *

Kara tried the door; it was unlocked, as it often was when he was home. She swung it open before stepping inside. He was standing there staring at her as soon as she walked in. She stopped abruptly, surprised.

“Eric,” she eyed him curiously as she closed the door behind herself. “Hi, are you uh…are you okay?” she asked as she moved toward him.

“Where were you?” he asked.

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “With friends, like I told you earlier. Why?”

“Was Mike one of those friends?”

She paused for a minute while she tried to figure out who he meant. Her eyes widened as it came to her. _Mon-El_. She stared back at him. “What? Why?”

“You seem to spend an awful lot of time _with friends_ , Kara. And you never seem to want me there with you when you hang out with them.”

She shook her head, “That’s not true. We’ve all hung out before,” she shrugged, “We just had game night--”

“That was over a month ago and only for a few hours. Every other time that you’re ‘out with friends’ you’re gone nearly half the night.”

“And your point?” she asked defensively. “Eric, what are you trying to say? Just say it.”

“Are you cheating on me?” he asked, anger audible in his tone.

“I’m sorry, what?” she asked, surprised, as she dropped her purse on an end table nearby.

“Are you cheating on me?” he repeated the question.

Her eyes were wide as she looked back at him. “Why would you think I was _cheating_ on you?”

“Well, you’re in love with Mike, for one,” he stated bluntly.

Her jaw dropped. She couldn’t help it. “I’m sorry,” she laughed, “I’m what? In love with--no. I’m not. Definitely not. You’re wrong,” she shook her head. “That’s not true.”

“You’re being overly defensive, Kara,” Eric shook his head as he moved to stand directly in front of her, nearly towering over her. “You could have just said ‘no’.”

“I--”

“Do you know you talk in your sleep, Kara?” he asked as he sighed.

She crinkled her eyebrows at him, “What does that have to do with--”

“You say _his name_ in your sleep, Kara.”

She blinked at him, “What?”

“You say it all the time. Nearly every night we’ve been together. You say _Mon-El_. I--I never understood it before, so I just used to ignore it. I used to think that it was just some weird trait about you that I would learn to ignore. Your friends said it a couple of times at game night so I finally put the pieces together. I know that’s some kinda weird nickname you guys gave Mike.”

“I don’t think--”

“Kara, just stop,” he sighed again. “I’m tired of this and I know you are, too. I’ve known for a while now. Since I met Mike that day at CatCo…the day when you couldn’t even tell me yourself that he was your ex-boyfriend. Whatever this is…you’re not interested anymore.”

“Eric, I--”

“I asked you to move in with me yesterday and you haven’t said a word about it since.”

“I said I needed time…”

“Kara, you’re here nearly every night. You just don’t want to put an official label on it because that means we’re _really_ together. If we’re actually living together and sharing a home…you know that means that you can’t get back together with Mike.”

“That’s not it.”

“Then what is it, Kara?” he questioned. “Tell me why you won’t move in with me. Tell me what’s holding you back.”

“I--” she started, but he was right. She had no other excuse to give him.

“You talk about him all the time,” he moved to sit down on the sofa and she followed slowly behind him, eyebrows furrowed as she tried to recall any times she might have done that. “You don’t even notice that you do. I see you watching him whenever you happen to let me hang out with your friends. You smile at him and…you don’t smile at _me_ like that. You never have,” he shook his head as his eyes met hers. She opened her mouth to say something, but he continued. “I’m not mad, Kara. I think he makes you happy. Right?”

She nodded and a quiet, “Yeah,” left her lips, barely audible.

“I knew for months that there was something between us…some secret that you were hiding from me. Something you didn’t want to tell me; something you didn’t want me to know. And after meeting Mike, I finally get it. _That’s_ your secret. You’re not over him; you never have been. _That’s_ where you want to be. With him.”

She shrugged her shoulders as her eyes fell to her lap. It was much better that he believe _that_ was her only secret. “I’m serious, I’m not mad, Kara. We…we’ve had fun I think…for a while at least. I just don’t see why either of us is still wasting their time. I dunno, maybe this was good for you or something. Maybe it helped you figure out what you really wanted.” He shook his head at her. “I think you should go and do something good for yourself. I’ve seen how you look at him, but I’ve also seen how he looks at you.” Her eyes flew up to meet his and he laughed at her surprised expression. “He’s not very good at hiding it.”

She sighed, “I don’t know about that. It’s not like he’s told me he’s still interested in me or anything.”

“Kara, if he’s looking at you like _that_ , he doesn’t need to say it. We can all see it.” He rubbed her back gently. He sighed, “Well, this is me breaking up with you, Kara,” he smiled. “So you better figure out what you want and what to do about it.”

She looked up at him. “I’m sorry, Eric. I mean, you’re--”

“Not the guy for you.”

“And I really did like you, but--”

“You love _him_ ,” he finished for her again. She just stared back at him, a sad smile on her face. “Go,” he steered her into standing and moved her to face the door. “We’re both better off. This is making neither of us happy. I’ll just see you around work.”

She nodded. “Thanks…” her voice was small. She moved toward the door, picking up her purse as she went.

Maybe fate really did have other plans for her. Maybe this was sign that she should really go after Mon-El…if she hadn’t screwed things up bad enough already…

* * *

_November 17, 2017_

Kara decided to take the day off work. It was Friday. Taking the day off meant that she wouldn’t have to see Eric at work for at least three days and she could gather her thoughts. She’d spent the day at her loft trying to figure out what her next move was. She debated back and forth as to whether or not she should actually say anything to Mon-El. Maybe Eric was just jealous of her friendship with Mon-El and he was overreacting? Maybe Mon-El wasn’t looking at her any differently than he had been the last few months while they’d agreed to be friends. Maybe that’s just how he looked at her? She hadn’t noticed a difference anyway. At least she didn’t think so…

But then she would think about it and her heart would pound and her stomach would get all fluttery with butterflies as she thought about the possibility of Mon-El still having feelings for her; of the possibility that she could go to him and tell him that her feelings had never gone away; that though she had never said it out loud to him before, she loved him…she’d _always_ loved him and she wanted to be with him. If he’d have her. If he’d forgive her.

Then the fearful, abandoned little girl inside of her screamed out not to take that chance because knowing that she was free and clear to be with him and him _not_ forgiving her and _not_ having feelings for her anymore would break her heart. Break the heart that she’d just finally managed to really put back together. She didn’t want to risk their newly developed friendship on something that might never happen.

Instead, she settled on day drinking. Well, afternoon drinking (it was nearly 5:00pm after all). At the alien bar. The alien bar where her anxiety inducing problem worked. The alien bar where all they seemed to play anymore was sappy country songs that made her want to bang her forehead on the table in front of her.

_You hear a new song, and it’s your favourite_   
_Pretty soon you’ll be changing the station_   
_And all your old shoes are looking brand new_   
_They wanna be worn, but they never get the chance, too_   
_Heavy into everything_   
_Ready for the next thing_   
_To catch your eye for a while then you’re over it_   
_You change your mind on it_   
_Soon as the shine’s gone_   
_Like you always do, but you don’t know it yet, but_

_Whoa, whoa_   
_I ain’t gonna be that easy to leave_   
_Whoa, whoa_   
_Girl, I’m gonna make you miss me_   
_Make you wish that you were sleeping in my shirt_   
_Lie about my jacket and tell everyone it’s yours_   
_When your phone rings after midnight and you’re thinking maybe it’s me_   
_I’m gonna make you miss me_

She was doing fine until he’d arrived for his shift. She’d started with club soda, but then she saw his face and quickly made her way over to whatever alien strength stuff the bartender had brought her when she’d asked for something _strong_. She wasn’t feeling it yet. At least she didn’t _think_ so. She was pretty sure this was her third one. Maybe it would take a few more to really hit her.

She’d watched him come in, hop over the bartop and get working; a grin spread wide across his face as he went right over to a redhead leaning against the bar who’d waved him down with a smile. She’d seen her around before. Was she always a redhead? She couldn’t tell if she was also an alien or not, but she was beautiful. He’d talked to her for a bit; she didn’t focus her superhearing because she didn’t want to know what they talked about. She didn’t want to hear his smooth voice, persuading her into anything with him. His hand was twirling her hair, the ends of the red locks wrapped around his finger as she giggled at him and Kara couldn’t watch anymore.

It wasn’t long after that before he started chatting up a group of brunettes at the other end of the bar; the three of them sitting down at a table that he walked up to with a tray of four drinks, one for himself as he drank a clear bubbly liquid alongside them. She wished that she didn’t assume it was club soda because that hurt too much. They were all laughing, nearly hysterically and the sound of it was vibrating against her brain inside her skull and she closed her eyes, her forehead falling to the table as she tried to drown out the noise.

When her head finally rose again, she quickly and easily spotted him dancing with a blonde in the middle of the bar, back before the sappy country songs had started playing; before her feelings had hit her so hard.

It had taken him a while to even notice her sitting there, off in the far booth in the corner all alone, due to his flirting with basically every woman in the bar. When he’d spotted her, his eyebrows had furrowed as his eyes connected with hers from behind the bar. She smiled an attempt at a somewhat happy smile at him and he’d continued to look at her confusedly. She’d waved at him and he squinted back at her before returning the gesture. Then another bartender started talking to him and his attention shifted. She shrunk further into the cushioned bench and focused on the drink in her hand.

Maybe it was the drinking. Maybe it was the voice echoing through the bar along to the music, the words stabbing at her heart. But most likely it was Mon-El standing behind the bar chatting up another gorgeous customer that made the tears come. She didn’t notice she was crying until a tear dropped onto the table, the droplet ricocheting from the table top and splashing onto her hand still clutching her glass. It shouldn’t bother her. They were really just talking. But he threw the towel from his hand onto his shoulder as he did some fancy trick with a glass and some bottles as he finished making the woman’s drink for her. He slid it out to her as she giggled, batting her eyelashes at him and Kara thought she was going to throw up.

_You’re cold and hot_   
_You burn out like a match_   
_Keep a slip knot and the strings you attach_   
_You think it’s easy, but that’s a lie_   
_The only reason that you’re good at goodbye is_   
_Every boy you ever met was too easy to forget_   
_Well, I ain’t going out like that_

_Whoa, whoa_   
_I ain’t gonna be that easy to leave_   
_Whoa, whoa_   
_Girl, I’m gonna make you miss me_   
_Make you wish that you were sleeping in my shirt_   
_Lie about my jacket and tell everyone it’s yours_   
_When your phone rings after midnight and you’re thinking maybe it’s me_   
_I’m gonna make you miss me_

He might not actually be flirting with her. They might just be talking. Telling harmless jokes. But she remembered single Mon-El; the way he’d look at women, the comments he’d make to get them to blush for him. She felt jealousy rearing its ugly head inside of her and she wiped at her eyes as she turned away. She couldn’t watch that anymore. She finished off the amber liquid inside her glass just as a bartender walked by, plopping another full glass down on the table. Kara smiled up at her with gratitude as her hands reached for the new glass.

“Nu uh uh,” Alex slid into the booth out of nowhere, her hand grabbing and lifting the glass, pulling it away from Kara. She sniffed it. “What the hell is this, Kara? This is disgusting.”

“It works,” she responded simply.

“It works? Works for what? Why are you drinking? Alone?”

“Because I’m sad, Alex,” she stated on a sigh, “Why are you even here? How did you find me?” Even she could tell that she was starting to slur her words. Maybe those drinks were affecting her after all…

Alex nodded her head backwards in the direction of the bar. “Mon-El called me. He asked if I was coming to meet you. When I said no, he asked why you were here alone then.”

“Hmph,” she huffed. “Why can’t he mind his own business?”

Alex cocked an eyebrow at her sister. “He said he was pretty sure you were drinking too much and that you looked sad and he was worried.”

“He doesn’t have to worry about me. It’s not his job to worry about me. His job is to make and serve drinks,” she stated obviously.

“Drinks,” Alex repeated. “He said you were drinking a lot. And by the looks of you,” she grabbed Kara’s chin and forced her gaze up to her, “you have been.”

Kara pulled her face from her sister’s hand. “I have not.”

“What happened, Kara?”

She sighed heavily. “Eric broke up with me.”

Alex’s eyes widened. “What? Right now?”

“Yesterday,” she sighed and a different bartender dropped a glass of water on the table in front of her.

“Thanks,” Alex nodded at the bartender as she pushed the glass toward Kara. “Drink water,” she instructed. “Before or after I saw you?”

“After,” she responded. “I went back to his apartment and he asked me if I was _cheating_ on him! The nerve!” she shouted and Alex shushed her. “Like I would ever do such a thing.”

“What was his reason then? Why would he think that?”

Her voice went down to a harsh whisper as she leaned in toward Alex. “He said that I was in love with Mon-El! How could he think _that_?”

Alex tried _really hard_ to supress her grin. She wasn’t sure it worked. “I don’t know, Kara, maybe because you are.”

Kara straightened up and scowled at her sister. “I _am not_. He’s my _friend_ ,” she emphasized the word. “F-R-E-no,” she paused as she thought about it. “ _Friend_ ,” she repeated again, giving up on the choice to spell it out for her.

“Yeah, sure,” she rolled her eyes. “You two are exactly the same. You just keep talking _about_ each other instead of taking _to_ each other.”

_Whoa, whoa_   
_I ain’t gonna be that easy to leave_   
_Whoa, whoa_   
_Girl, I’m gonna make you miss me_   
_Writing letters that you’re never gonna mail_   
_Stay up and paint my favourite shade of red on your nails_   
_‘Cause you can’t fall asleep and you’re wishing you were with me_   
_I’m gonna make you miss me_   
_Make you miss me_   
_Make you miss the way my hand fit in your hand_   
_When you’re dialing my number, listening to my favourite bands_   
_I’ll say, hey baby, you know all you can say is come and get me_   
_I’m gonna make you miss me_   
_I’m gonna make you miss me_   
_Oh, oh, oh_   
_I’m gonna make you miss me_

“What is this crap music they keep playing?” she suddenly shouted as she stood up in the booth. Alex burst out laughing as she reached over to tug Kara back into her seat.

“Kara,” she laughed, “Calm down.”

“Ugh,” she huffed loudly. “It’s making me sick.”

“You two are _a lot_ more alike than you realize,” Alex muttered.

“What?” Kara questioned, squinting her eyes at her sister.

“Kara,” she started, her hand grabbing her sister’s. “I know you’re drunk right now, but I need you to listen to me very closely.”

Kara nodded as she stared intently at Alex.

“I need you,” she pointed at her for emphasis, “to go tell Mon-El that you still have feelings for him.”

Kara looked directly at her sister. “I’m not doing that,” she stated matter-of-factly as she shook her head.

“Gah, what is it with you two?!” she shouted loudly, drawing the attention of some of the bar patrons. She lowered her voice, “Why won’t you guys just _talk_ to each other for God’s sake?”

“I’m not telling him anything. Look at him,” she nodded in his direction at the bar. “First he was chatting up that redhead over there. Then the brunettes and the blonde. Now he’s onto the new brunette in the corner. I’ve been sitting here for _hours_ , Alex…and he hasn’t once come over here. He’s not interested in me anymore. It’s obvious. I’ve lost it all and now I just have to sit here in this bar and drink,” she reached to Alex’s side and attempted to grab at the glass her sister had taken away from her.

“No!” she scolded her as she removed the glass entirely, setting it on another table. “My God, why won’t you two stop _assuming_ things about each other and just _talk_ to each other!” Alex exclaimed. She sighed and she found herself repeating her earlier statements to Mon-El. “Kara, if it’s meant to be, you’ll find your way back to each other. But sometimes…sometimes fate needs a little kick. Sometimes someone’s gotta take the first step. Just promise me that you’ll go home and sober up and tomorrow when you see Mon-El, _please_ just tell him how you feel. He may be chatting up those women at the bar, but he’s a bartender. That’s what they do. Strike up conversation to make tips; to make friends. His heart…that’s still set aside for you, believe me.”

Kara blinked at her sister confusedly.

“Okay?” she asked and Kara nodded at her unsure. “Okay, good. I’ll take that as a step in the right direction. Talk to him…before I have to lock you two in a room together and _force_ you to.” She stood and grabbed a hold of Kara’s arm as she tugged her up to stand. “Now, let’s get you home. You need to rest up for that big conversation tomorrow,” she grinned at Kara, but her sister was blinking sleepily. She rolled her eyes.

They walked by Mon-El, but didn’t say anything, Alex just threw him an annoyed glance before they made it to the door.

Mon-El watched them leave. What was that look from Alex? Was this _his_ fault? Kara’s drinking? He purposely stayed out of her way in attempts to not upset her. He hadn’t even talked to her and he’d already screwed up with her.

Wait…maybe that’s why he’d screwed up. He _hadn’t_ talked to her. He hadn’t done _anything_. He remembered Alex pushing him to tell Kara about how he felt about her, and he proceeded to go and do _nothing_ about it. He sighed loudly. Tomorrow then. For real this time. He’d say something tomorrow. He needed to get it off his chest, anyway. He just hoped it didn’t make things worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I guess we finally got rid of Eric, huh? Obviously, he knew since the moment he met Mon-El that he should be worried...
> 
> Thanks to you all for the comments, kudos, bookmarks, tweets, etc.! AND the prompts...I've got another few fics going from them all. I've also started mapping out another Red K fic for those of you who were wondering if I had forgotten about it! I think it might be a little longer than Red Desires, so it might take a while to get out. If only there were more hours in the day to write!
> 
> We've also reached 100 pins on the KaraMel Fandom Map! Please keep sharing the link if you can or add yourself if you haven't (you can also add yourself as Anonymous if you want to keep your location a secret!): https://www.zeemaps.com/map?group=2594021.
> 
> Twitter: @_ashleymaria_


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi y’all! Chapter 14 here. For those of you who knew of the original prompt, IT’S FINALLY HERE. I know, this fic literally diverted SO FAR AWAY mid-way through and finally came full circle to what the prompt basically asked for. Oops.
> 
> (I’ll be posting the original prompt at the end of the final chapter FYI)
> 
> Enjoy the second-to-last chapter (ahhhh even I can’t believe it’s ending so soon!)

**Chapter Fourteen**

_November 18, 2017_

It had been a really long day.

A long day of chasing aliens around the city who they were ultimately finally able to trap only at a little after 1:00am. A group of them had been breaking into banks all around the city all day long, always one step ahead of the team at the DEO. When it looked like the craziness had died down for the night, they were finally able to capture them at their home base.

“Alright everyone,” J’onn spoke to the crowd of agents. “Tomorrow is another day. We did well today, but no doubt, we’ll need to be ready for anything tomorrow, too. For now, everyone needs to go home or back to your cots. Rest up so we can beat whatever comes our way tomorrow. Night shift, take an extra hour for yourselves before you report back. I’ll see you all tomorrow. Goodnight.”

A bunch of ‘yes sirs’ and ‘goodnights’ echoed around the room as Kara stepped up to J’onn.

“I’m sorry, J’onn. I wish we could have gotten them faster today. I’ll be more on my game tomorrow. I was just…out of it today.”

“Rough night?” J’onn asked as he nodded behind her. She spun around to see what he was gesturing at and she saw Mon-El, a deep frown on his face as he paced the floor. She turned back and glared at J’onn. He laughed at her briefly before calling out. “Mon-El!” The boy spun around quickly to look up at his boss, his eyes wide with worry, his frown straightening itself out. His gaze flicked over to Kara briefly before he moved to walk toward them both.

“Yes, sir,” he gulped nervously. Okay, so _maybe_ the fact that it took them _all day_ to capture those aliens could _sort of_ be seen as his fault. They just managed to outrun him a couple of times! He just couldn’t keep up today. He chanced a look at Kara. His mind had been focused _elsewhere_ all day.

“I need you to take that case down to the bunker,” he pointed behind Kara and toward a large black metal briefcase sitting on one of the computer tables.

He blinked at J’onn before he looked over at the case and then at Kara. “Bunker? What’s a bunker?” he asked, his eyes wide and confused.

Kara eyed him strangely, “The bunker…downstairs?” she clarified.

“I swear, I don’t know what that is,” he shook his head in confusion.

J’onn’s hand rose to his forehead. “I’m sorry,” he shook his own head. “We implemented it a few months ago while you were in your coma.” He looked over at Kara. “Kara, can you show him where it is…and drop that case off down there, please.”

Her eyes widened. “J’onn, I--”

“Just take him real quick. Everyone else is headed home. You’re dismissed afterward. I’ll see you both tomorrow. Goodnight,” He had spoken so quickly, turned and walked away before either of them could say anything more in protest.

Kara sighed loudly before turning to grab the case. “Okay, let’s go,” she huffed as she moved quickly deeper into the DEO.

He was hot on her heels as she led him to this “bunker” J’onn had spoken of, his eyes wide with excitement. “So…what’s a bunker?”

“A room underground with emergency supplies that offers protection…often used for defence against weapons, wars, disease, zombies…you watch apocalyptic films; you should know,” she spat out at him.

He furrowed his eyebrows. “Kara…are you mad at me?” he asked as he caught up to her, walking next to her as she trudged angrily toward the bunker.

“Yes,” she answered shortly.

His eyes widened in surprise. “I mean, I thought we were okay now? If you don’t mind me asking, what did I do exactly?” They arrived at an intimidatingly large doorframe, the door having been left wide open.

“This is the bunker,” she stated obviously, ignoring his previous question as she moved inside, walking to a table at the back where she placed the case J’onn had instructed her to bring down. Mon-El stepped in after her, looking around the room and whistling.

“Wow…what a…fun looking place?” his eyebrows furrowed. It looked pretty boring in here. “Has a pretty sturdy door,” he stated as he moved to push it closed behind him, the door swinging smoothly and quickly on its hinges.

“Mon-El, don’t close the--”

_Crash._

“--door!” She yelled out at him as she clenched her eyes shut. He blinked at her, unsure as to why she was suddenly more upset than she was a few moments ago. “It locks automatically, Mon-El!” she shouted loudly at him.

“What?” he asked surprised. “How was I supposed to know that?!”

Her eyes were angry when they flew open and connected with his. “ _Everybody_ knows that! We had a meeting! Why don’t you ever pay attention?” she yelled at him as she stepped toward him.

“What?” he was confused again. “No, we didn’t. I never went to a meeting about this place.”

“Yes, you did. Everyone went. It was mandatory. _We had a meeting_!” she argued, her arms flying up in the air.

“No, we didn’t,” he insisted.

“Yes, we--” she paused. _His coma_. He was in his coma when they had had the meeting, “--did,” she finished. “While you were in your coma we had a meeting about protocol surrounding the new bunker...”

He sighed loudly. “Just one more thing I missed out on while I was unconscious apparently.”

“Well, great,” she huffed. “Now we’ll be stuck in here for who knows how long,” she threw her arms in the air in exasperation.

“Stuck?” he furrowed his eyebrows at her. “Let’s just break down the door. We’ll fix it tomorrow.”

“We _literally_ can’t, Mon-El. The door and the walls, they’re made of Nth metal.”

“Well, why’d they go and do that? Why did you guys even build this place?” he asked as he moved around the room, eyeing all the supplies and weapons that were stocked up around them.

She watched him for a moment before she decided to fill him in. “We’d been tracking your parents after you were put into your coma. We’d overheard them say something about coming after me…something about trying to put a bounty on my head or something.” He spun around, his eyes connecting with hers while being filled with worry. “They _didn’t_ …but we thought it might be a good idea to have this place anyway. You know, to take precautions in case something like that ever did happen. That way they could protect me and anyone else they put me down here with while they fixed the problem. We’d have supplies, but also nobody could break in. Even those with Kryptonian and Daxamite strength. Then again, I couldn’t break out. The door locks automatically when you close it and it can only be opened by an active DEO member on an approved list. You know, like Alex, J’onn, Winn. They have to enter a code on the other side of the door at the same time I enter my code on this side of the door, so we both agree to open it.”

“Wow,” he sighed. “You guys really thought of everything.” She nodded, but her eyes still looked angry. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “Well, let’s just call Alex…get her to come let us out.” She watched him amusedly as he moved about the bunker, obviously trying to find a signal.

“That won’t work,” she chuckled. “For one, we’re underground. Cell service is worse down here. For two, the stuff lining the walls it…it interferes with the wireless signals. Your phone just won’t work down here. We couldn’t figure out a way around that, yet.” He huffed as he shoved his phone back in his pocket.

“Oh well. Someone will come looking. Someone will find us,” he stated confidently.

“Mon-El,” she started. “It’s literally the middle of the night,” she said back, an obviously annoyed tone to her voice. “We’ve already said goodnight to J’onn, all the agents were told to go home for the night. The ones who are on night shifts are already back in their rooms for a few hours’ sleep. Nobody’s going to come looking for us. Not for a while. Not if none of them even know we’re down here.”

“I’m sure Eric will wonder where you are. He’ll start asking around and then someone will piece it together and come looking for us,” he shrugged at her.

Kara huffed loudly as she turned around and walked away from him.

“Oh,” his eyes widened. “Okay. I get it. Eric is an off limits topic.” She turned around and glared at him. He took a step back. “Did I do something?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow at her.

“Did you do something?” she huffed. “ _Did you_ _do something_?” she laughed loudly as she turned away from him and started to pace the floor. “There’s no way he’d think of looking for me now,” she stated firmly, aggressively almost.

“Eric? Okay…uhm, did you two get into a fight?” The words came out, but he immediately wanted to take them back. He could see her face starting to get red, “Okay…so a fight…” he assumed.

“This is all your fault!” she suddenly shouted and he took another step back, his body almost leaning against the Nth metal door to the bunker.

“ _Me_? What did I do this time?” he asked timidly, his eyes wide.

“ _This_ time? _Every_ time! You’re _always_ doing something.”

“Kara,” he started, lifting his hands up in defense. “I’m sorry about the door. I swear, I won’t touch new things like that ever again if I don’t understand them. I know you’re upset I got us lock--”

“You lied to me!”

“About…about the door? Kara, I’m really conf--”

“About who you were. Who you are. Your _whole life_.”

His eyebrows raised before they dropped, along with his gaze, his eyes falling to his feet. “Kara, I--”

“You lied! This all started when you lied to me. How could you do that to me?” her voice cracked and it made him look up at her, his eyes searching hers. He could see that she was starting to tear up. “We broke up, okay?” she was shouting again, and once again, he was confused.

“Us?”

“Eric,” she growled. “He did. He broke up with me.”

Mon-El’s eyes widened as he took a step back toward her. “What? Why would he want to do that?”

“Because of you!” she shouted, her eyes teary.

“Me? What did I--? I swear I didn’t say anything to him. I never even really talked to him,” he shook his head in defence.

“He thinks you’re in love with me,” she stated obviously, as if that was the most ridiculous thing someone could think to be true.

He paused for a minute. “So, what if I was? That doesn’t explain why he would want to end things with you…”

“He thought I was in love with you back.”

“Are you?” he asked, taking another step toward her.

“Am I what?”

“In love with me?” he questioned, his eyes searching hers.

“What does that even matter right now? We’re stuck in a freaking bunker and we likely will be all night and I just got dumped and I want to sit at home and eat ice cream and binge watch sad movies and cry like normal girls do when their life is falling apart around them and--”

She stopped talking when she felt his hands grab a hold of her face, forcing her gaze to meet his.

“Kara,” he said softly, “you’re avoiding the question.”

She shook her head from his grasp and tried to step away, but he caught her arm.

“Kara--”

“This is stupid,” she suddenly shouted as she pulled her arm from his grasp.

“What is?” he questioned as his eyebrows furrowed together.

“ _This!_ All of this! I’ve been so fucking angry for months and I finally get a _teeny tiny drop_ of happiness with Eric and you go and ruin it. You ruined _everything_!”

He watched a tear as it slipped out, her hand quickly coming up to swipe it away. She was crying. She didn’t look sad though. She looked _angry_. She growled at him again. Yup, those were definitely angry tears.

“Why did you come into my life and just make everything so _complicated_! You lie to me about who you are; about who your parents are. All as if it’s not this big, huge deal. You tell me you _love me_ and then you go and get yourself put into a _coma_!”

He cut in, “I’d like to say that that coma part wasn’t exactly my fault…” She glared at him. “Sorry…”

“It wasn’t your fault. It was _mine_! Of all things I do, I go and tell you to talk to your _insane_ mother; to try to fix things. Then I wait…wait for _so long_ for you to open your eyes! You just laid there unconscious for _weeks_ and I decided to finally move on; to finally just _try_ to be happy again and then you go and decide to wake up. The second you woke up, it was like I couldn’t get you out of my head. Your stupid charming smile, and your puppy dog eyes, and that laugh of yours…” She stomped her foot like an angry child before she continued to pace the room.

“I’m sorry?” he apologized as he moved toward her again.

“And then we decide to be friends and you spend all your time flirting with women at the bar and laughing with all the DEO agents all day long. But then you’d look at me. Everyone could tell. For Rao’s sake, _Eric_ , who saw you all of what…three times? _He_ could tell you were in love with me. You just sat there and stared at me and smiled at me and ugh!” Her brain was going a mile a minute and she wasn’t sure if she was even making sense anymore, but she couldn’t stop the words from exploding out of her, an angry rant being thrown at Mon-El who stared at her defenseless, his eyes wide with concern.

“I won’t do that anymore, Kara. I promise.” Maybe it was best that they give this friendship thing a rest. She was obviously angry about his feelings for her. Maybe he should give them both a little breathing room.

“And it was so easy for you. Being happy. You _always_ looked so happy and that’s all I wanted for myself. That’s what I’d been trying to find for _months_. And you wake up, after missing out on tons of things in your own life, after remembering you lost your girlfriend, and remembering your parents and how they tried to take everything away from you and you’re just there. _Happy_.”

“Kara, I--”

“Me!” she suddenly shouted, cutting him off.

“You? You what?”

“What’s stupid is me! The things I’ve been doing. The things I’ve been saying. The decisions I’ve been making. You know I wasn’t even happy with Eric,” she continued on. “I’m Supergirl. I’m so strong. I have millions of other things I could be thinking about and doing and taking care of. Why was I even _with_ Eric if I wasn’t happy? I don’t need a man to make me happy.”

He watched as she finally stopped pacing, her face softening as if she’d just come to a conclusion about herself.

“I don’t need Eric,” she stated firmly. “I don’t even _want_ Eric. Come to think of it, I’m _glad_ he broke up with me. It saved me the trouble of having to try to make things work between us when I didn’t even really want that in the first place.”

He nodded again as she continued her ranting. At least she had stopped pacing. She was starting to make his head spin.

“But a girl can want what she wants, right?” she looked up at him and waited for his response.

“Of course,” he added as his nodding continued.

“There’s nothing wrong with that. Wanting to be happy.”

He shook his head.

“And I want to be happy,” she stated simply.

“I want that for you, Kara. Everybody should be able to be happy.”

She nodded. “Exactly. It took me a while, I mean, I was likely just in denial for months about it, but I know what makes me happy. And I want it back.”

“That’s good, Kara. I’ll just…I won’t bother you anymore. I’ll just leave you alone. You should just find what makes you happy and go after it without worrying about me getting in your way.”

“You.”

“Hmm? Me, what?” he asked confusedly.

“You make me happy.”

He stared back at her for a minute, blinking as he tried to comprehend what she was saying.

“You. I just want you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry! I had to stop it there. Can't give the whole moment away in one go ;) 
> 
> We'll finally get them to kiss and make up next chapter. Hope to see you all there!
> 
>  
> 
> Twitter: @_ashleymaria_
> 
> KaraMel Fandom Map: https://www.zeemaps.com/map?group=2594021


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOOPS RATING BUMP
> 
> Not that it really needs it, but I can only write nipple, cock or clit so many times before I start to get rating-paranoid…
> 
> So if you’re offended by those words or smut just isn’t your thing, you might wanna skip out until the last couple paragraphs!
> 
> Anyways, *sigh* prepare yourselves for a bit of a wordy author’s note here…
> 
> This is it guys! The FINAL CHAPTER. The final chapter of this labour of love that has taken over my life since I started writing it in April. 
> 
> I started writing fanfic when I was about fifteen (albeit starting with REALLY cheesy stuff in the Smallville fandom) and I’d never been able to properly finish a multi-chap fic in my life –- one with a plot and ups and downs and personality. The only real multi-chap I actually completed took me over six years to get done (oops). I had a fear that I’d never be able to be proud of a multi-chap that I had written, never having the drive or the time or the fandom that seemed like they were willing enough to dedicate time to reading, so I never really tried writing one…and now I can finally say that I wrote a multi-chap that I’m proud of. 
> 
> And I couldn’t have done it all without YOU – literally all of you at AO3, at FF.net and on Twitter; your responses and love and feedback are why I write. I mean, I do write for my own enjoyment of our couple, but it’s a lot easier to just imagine it in your head than to take the time to write it all down. Getting comments and praise and theories and guesses was just so encouraging. This fic was my own at the beginning and now it has become all of ours and I’m so happy I could share in the enjoyment of it with you all.
> 
> Now, I even have some more multi-chaps in the works (that almost seem more daunting than this one because at least FOWB had a prompt I could follow), so I hope I can continue to take you all on more short (and smutty) journeys as well as longer journeys like this one…with probably just as much angst and emotional torture as this one brought you (sorry!).
> 
> Now, that my heart is so happy and full, on to the final chapter!

**Chapter Fifteen**

_November 18, 2017_

“Kara,” he started. “I think I’m confused again…”

She stepped up to him, her arms wrapping around his neck as she nearly jumped on him, the force of her body crashing into him and his back fell into the door behind him. Her lips were on his, aggressive and almost _angry_. But his hands were sliding around her waist and he felt her fingers in his hair and he couldn’t make himself care about her aggression. He would do whatever she wanted him to do, so long as she kept _kissing him_. He felt her tongue sliding against his lips and he opened his mouth wider for her. Her fingers fluttered down his chest, grabbing at the zipper of his DEO uniform as they went, sliding it down before she grabbed the bottom of the shirt.

“Kara,” he broke free from her lips.

“Shut up,” she whined as she tugged his shirt over his head.

Her lips fell to his again, taking his breath from him. _Was it always so hot in here?_ He was sure he was panting unattractively against her mouth. His brain wasn’t functioning. All he could see and hear and feel was _Kara_. Her fingernails scratched through the patch of hair at his belly button and he felt his stomach quiver in anticipation. _Was this actually happening?_

Her hands were reaching for his pants, her fingers trying to tug the button from its loop. He felt her fingers pulling harder before her lips broke away from his and her eyes flew downward.

“What is it with this _stupid button_?!” she whispered harshly, seemingly to herself and she looked to be debating on the easiest way to physically tear his pants from his body. He furrowed his eyebrows, his hands landing on hers.

“Kara,” he started, stilling her hands. “Stop.” Her fingers stopped flexing, but she didn’t raise her head.

His hands left hers as they moved to her cheeks, cupping her face as he pulled her gaze up to his. She had tears in her eyes and his own eyes widened upon noticing. “Kara,” he breathed, his voice gentle as he shook his head. “What’re you doing? What’re _we_ doing?”

“I want to,” she insisted with a sniffle.

“I don’t think you do,” he shook his head again.

She nodded as she blinked against her tears, “I do. I’m just--I don’t know why it took me so long to realize that this is what I want.”

“Yeah, okay, you _want_ me,” he repeated her earlier words. “Then you’ll have me. And then what? What happens after that? You leave and move on to the next thing that ‘makes you happy.’ And I’m left standing here. Alone again.”

She raised her head as she looked at him incredulously, the thin layer of tears making her blue eyes sparkle at him. “I want _you_. Everything about you, Mon-El. It took me a while to realize that it was you all along. I want it all…everything with you.”

He eyed her suspiciously. “Then why are you crying?”

“Because I’m sorry,” she apologized and it came out on a sob. “I’m sorry for the things that I said and how I pushed you out of my life. I’m sorry that I stopped visiting you at the DEO and that I wasn’t there when you woke up. I’m sorry I went out with Eric…I slept with him! Oh Rao, Mon-El, I can’t believe I did that. I’m sorry. I--” Her hands came up to cover her face. “I’m sorry I wasted so much time on him when I could have been trying to work on things with you. If I would have stopped for a _second_ and tried to not be angry anymore…if I had just opened up my eyes and saw that you were what I wanted I--”

She stopped abruptly, his finger coming up and laying across her lips as he shushed her.

“Stop,” he sighed, a small smile slipping onto his lips. He pulled her into his chest in a hug, his arms sliding under her cape and holding her tightly to him.

“This,” she sighed as she tightened her arms around his waist. “I missed this so much,” she buried her face in his bare chest. “I missed how you used to hold me.”

He felt her tears slipping out and onto his chest and he ran his hands up and down her back comfortingly. He kissed her temple, resting his nose at her hairline.

“I was just so angry…for so long that I didn’t know how else to be. I don’t care that you lied about your past anymore,” she shook her head against him. “I understand why you did it. I know that you were scared about how I’d react and I reacted badly anyway. I said things and I--I shouldn’t have gotten that upset at you, Mon-El,” she mumbled into his chest.

“I won’t ever lie like that again, Kara. It was stupid to keep something that big from you. Something that important about my past.”

“I just don’t want you to be mad at me,” she pulled away slightly, her teary eyes connecting with his.

He raised an eyebrow at her, “Mad? Why would I be mad at you? Because you ignored me for months, glared at me or ran away every time I walked into a room, essentially refused to work with me, carried on with your life as if I didn’t exist?” She sobbed loudly against his chest. He smiled as he continued to run his hands up and down her back.

“I took what we had and threw it out the window so easily. I _abandoned_ you. I left you alone after I said I wouldn’t…”

“I’m not mad,” he said as he chuckled. “You drive me _nuts_ , but I’m not mad.” His lips fell to her hair. “Kara, I love you. I’ve never _stopped_ loving you. I don’t care how long it took you to figure things out for yourself. I just want you to be sure that this is what you want. Because I _know_ this is what _I_ want.”

She nodded, “It is. You’re what I want.” She leaned into him and kissed him softly. “You make me happy…like no one else ever has,” she whispered against his lips and he grinned before he kissed her, his lips melding with hers. He’d forgotten how much he enjoyed kissing her; those butterflies that would erupt inside of his stomach the moment before her lips met his. Her lips were so soft, so pliant against his as he felt her hands trail up his chest and hook around his neck.

She broke away from the kiss, her mouth only moving away from his enough to speak. “I miss _feeling_ ,” she sighed, her hands moving down to the waistband of his pants again. “Help me feel again, Mon-El. Please,” she whispered as her forehead leaned into his.

He nodded against her, his hands meeting hers at his waist, assisting in finally freeing the button from its loop and working the zipper down. She pushed at his pants, them easily sliding down and pooling around his ankles.

He moved to free her from her suit, her hands hastily pulling at the fabric as she helped him. As soon as it hit the floor, she felt herself being lifted, her feet leaving the floor as he grasped her thighs, wrapping her legs around his waist as he spun them. Her back hit the door and he pinned her there as his mouth fell to her neck.

His lips left a trail of hot kisses down her neck to her collarbone and she slid her fingers through his hair, tugging on the strands. His teeth nipped at her neck and he felt her shiver. “Mon-El,” she sighed against him, her eyes slipping closed as his lips sucked at the skin of her neck. His hips were grinding into her and she was rolling her own hips back against him.

He pulled her from the door slightly as his hands slid around her back to unhook her bra, sliding the straps from her shoulders and tossing it aside. His hips held her pinned up against the door as both of his hands moved to cup her breasts. Her eyes fluttered open and she watched him. He palmed her skin, his thumbs sliding over her nipples, his eyes watching as they hardened, their peaks darkening under his gaze. His hands cupped her and pushed her breasts together, his tongue sliding along the cleavage he’d produced before kissing the top of each mound. “Gods, I’ve missed your perfect body,” he moaned, his mouth at her chest. She giggled as he moved lower, his lips closing around her right nipple, sucking it into his warm mouth and her giggle turned into a moan as she held him against her. His hand pinched her left nipple and her hips thrusted against him in response. She felt him smile against her as his teeth grazed her nipple before releasing her and giving her left breast the same treatment.

As he sucked softly, she groaned, tugging at his ears, “Tease,” she breathed.

“You wanted to feel,” he stated simply.

“I _feel_ ,” she whined. “I want to feel _more_.” He raised his eyes to meet hers. She blinked back at him innocently as he felt her hips moving against him; the wanton circle she was making against the hardness in his boxers contradicting the bashful look in her eyes.

His hand slid down between her legs, two of his fingers rubbing against her sex through her panties, her wetness seeping through and dampening his fingers.

“Enough, yet?” he asked, a wicked look in his eyes.

“Mon-El,” she groaned as she bit her lip. He smirked at her.

“You mean, _more_?” he asked, feigning surprise, acting as if his teasing was more than enough. She just groaned at him as her forehead fell to his shoulder.

His arms wrapped around her waist as he pulled her from the wall and spun around again. She felt her back hit the rug on the floor and he hovered above her, his lips meeting hers. Her hands held his face to her, her fingernails scratching through the stubble at his chin as she felt his hands tickle their way down her sides. She squirmed against him until his hands landed on her hips, his fingers hooking into the waistband of her panties and beginning to tug them down. His lips trailed down her body as his hands moved further down her legs to remove the garment.

He kissed her bellybutton, watching as her abs clenched. He spread her legs to make room for himself, his hands hooking behind her knees and bending her legs. Her thighs hit his shoulders, her legs resting down his back.

“Oh, Rao,” she whimpered, her voice strained.

Mon-El raised his head to look at her. “You okay?” he asked, furrowing his eyebrows at her.

“Yesss,” she hissed, “It’s just been so long since anyone…” she sighed as she trailed off, her feet directing him, pulling him closer to her.

He smirked. He guessed Eric wasn’t a fan of oral, and as he ran a finger across her sex, gathering her wetness on his fingers, he wondered why anyone wouldn’t do that for Kara. He slid two digits inside of her and she moaned at the welcome intrusion.

“You’re always so tight,” he breathed against her skin and her thighs tightened around his head at his words. He slid his fingers out of her before replacing them with his tongue, his nose bumping against her clit as he lapped at her entrance briefly. She moaned above him and he looked up to her face. Her eyes were clenched shut, her hands in tight fists at her waist. He grabbed a hold of her hands, attempting to loosen her grip before he moved them to his head. Her eyes flew open and connected with his.

“Oh,” she breathed, her voice small as she said, “I forgot.”

He smirked at her, “It’s been so long that you’ve forgotten how to enjoy being eaten out?”

She blushed darkly as she clenched her eyes shut in embarrassment, “No,” she shook her head against the rug as she ran her fingers through his hair. “I just…forgot that I couldn’t hurt you.”

He raised his head and he watched a happy smile slowly appear on her lips. He quickly moved up her body, her thighs slipping from his shoulders as he kissed her. Her eyes were still closed and she wasn’t expecting him so she jumped slightly in surprise when his lips met hers. His tongue slid against hers and she groaned when she tasted herself on him.

He broke away, “Don’t be afraid to let go with me,” he spoke against her lips and she nodded. He slid back down her body, returning to his previous position, securing her thighs on his shoulders and her hands on his head. His own hands cupped her ass as his lips returned to her sex. His tongue flicked quickly at her clit in between dipping into her core as she squirmed against him. She was repeating a little moan and sigh combination that had his cock twitching in his boxers.

“Better yet?” he mumbled the question against her sex a few minutes later and she groaned, her hips thrusting into his mouth, his teeth knocking against her clit.

“Oh, Rao, stop talking,” she groaned.

He laughed loudly at her, returning his focus to between her legs. He slid two fingers inside of her again, stretching her, his lips latching onto her clit, suckling gently as he moved against his hand.

She cried out, “Yes, just like that,” and he felt her tug sharply at his hair to get his attention. “Take off your boxers,” she suddenly choked out the demand, her voice strained as she watched him. He looked up at her before he slid his fingers out of her channel and reached down to fulfill her request, balancing on his knees, his face leaning forward, still buried between her legs as he rubbed his face back and forth against her.

“Oh Rao,” she breathed, breaking eye contact as her back arched. She felt him smiling against her.

One of her hands was on the side of his head, the other pushed some of his hair from his forehead. When he felt her fingers slide across his forehead, he looked up at her, his tongue continuing its movements, the tip darting in and out of her. His eyes connected with hers and he slid his tongue along her sex, from the base of her opening up to her clit, the tip of his tongue ending the trail with an upward flick against her clit.

She moaned loudly, “Come here,” her hands were trying to cup his cheeks as she attempted to sit up.

“What?” he mumbled the question as his nose bumped her clit again when she pulled him upwards, his tongue moving out to lick her wetness from his lips.

“I want to touch you,” she said, her voice nearly a whisper.

“But, I’m not done,” he protested, a cute pout on his face. “You didn’t--”

“No, come here,” she laughed as he finally got up and looked at her. “I don’t want to come without you.” She pulled his face closer, her hands wiping her wetness from his chin and the tip of his nose before reaching down to grab a hold of his cock.

His eyes widened briefly. “Oh, okay,” he agreed as she tugged him back on top of her, her hand sliding up and down his hardness, her thumb sliding through the pre-cum already at his tip. “Is this okay here?” he croaked out, his voice strained. He’d forgotten how good her hot little hand was when she’d hold his cock. “On the floor, I mean?”

She nodded repeatedly as she leaned in to kiss him again. “I don’t care,” she mumbled against his lips. “Now, Mon-El,” she tugged on his cock, “I just need you inside me.”

His hand moved on top of hers, their hands stroking him tightly together as they moved his tip to her opening. She let him go as he covered himself in her wetness, dragging his tip along her sex, before he pushed himself inside of her. Her arms wrapped around his neck and she pulled him down on top of her, their chests pressed together as he slowly filler her with his hardness.

His head fell to the crook of her neck and he felt her holding her breath beneath him. “Relax, babe. Remember, I won’t break,” he whispered at her ear. She nodded and he felt her start to relax and her walls fluttered around him.

“Shit,” he muttered against her neck. “You need to do that again.”

She laughed and then clenched her sex, her walls tightening around him briefly before she relaxed again. His teeth grazed her neck as he groaned.

“Gah, Kara. You’re perfect.”

She giggled, “Move, Mon-El. Please?”

He nodded as he thrust his hips slowly, pushing inside of her to the hilt before slowly drawing out his entire length and sliding back inside. He lifted his head and pressed his forehead to hers. They were nose to nose when he whispered, “I’ve missed you so much.”

She nodded in agreement, her legs wrapping around his waist as she met his thrusts. His hand slid behind her, resting on her lower back as he angled her body, pushing deeper inside of her, her walls clenching around him. She was panting, trying to catch her breath and her face was flushed, her eyes squeezed shut, eyebrows furrowed together. He balanced himself on his elbows as one of his hands caressed her cheek. Her eyes popped open and met his; her baby blues dark with desire. “I love you,” he whispered and it made her heart flutter in her chest. To hear him say it out loud, right to her face with that smile as their eyes connected and with no tears this time. She was happy and after everything that happened, _he_ _still wanted_ _her_ and here they were, finally together once again.

Her eyes slid closed on a sigh as she absorbed his words. They slowly fluttered open and she whispered, “I love you,” back at him before his lips fell down to hers.

His hips were pounding against her, picking up speed as he could feel himself closer to the edge. He felt her hand slide between them, reaching down between her legs and landing on her clit.

“Nu uh,” he groaned, his hand batting hers away gently. “My job,” he stated simply and if she wasn’t so close to her finish line and wasn’t filled with so much desire, she would have rolled her eyes at him and thought up a sarcastic comment. His thumb slid against her clit with purpose and her hands squeezed at his shoulders.

She could feel the fire inside of her growing, her walls squeezing around his cock, her heart pounding in her chest. It had been so long since she had felt this way.

“Gah, Kara,” he groaned against her neck as he stammered, “I--I’m going to--you’re taking--we’re protected? It’s okay to come inside--”

“Yes, baby, yes, it’s okay,” she whimpered at his ear. “I want to feel you fall apart inside of me.” He nodded against her as he groaned.

She could feel herself almost over the edge as their thrusts met roughly, his fingers sliding along her clit, her thighs tightening around his waist, her fingers digging so hard into his shoulders that she feared that her nails might break through his skin.

“Kara,” he breathed her name and she felt herself letting go, her walls beginning to clench and release around him in one of the strongest orgasms she’d had in months. Her mouth dropped open as his lips landed on her neck. “I can’t wait anymore,” he whimpered against her.

She nodded, “S’okay,” she mumbled at him, her eyes closed and he nodded back against her neck.

His hand dropped from her clit, both hands stabling himself on the floor as he sped up his thrusting, almost at super speed as he chased his orgasm and she rode out hers. Her fingers slid through his hair, holding his head against her and he came with a grunt, shooting white hot inside of her as his hips continued to move.

He finally slowed as his arms gave way and he fell on top of her. “Sorry,” he mumbled breathlessly as their chests collided, but she laughed and wrapped her arms around his middle and shook her head.

“No, I want you here,” she sighed, her eyes slipping closed as she clutched his body to hers.

He moved to pull himself out of her when she tightened her legs around his waist. “No, just wait. Just a little bit longer.”

He nodded as his head rose and he looked at her. Her eyebrows were crinkling and he thought he saw a wetness at the corners of her eyes.

“Kara?” Her eyes fluttered open slowly. He noted the tears in her eyes. “Are you crying again?” He asked, a worried look in his own eyes as he slid his finger along the edge of her eye, attempting to wipe the starting tears away for her. “What did I do wrong this time? I thought you said I could co--”

“No, baby,” she coddled him with an attempt at a smile, “you did nothing wrong,” she shook her head. “Okay, maybe I’m crying,” she sniffled slightly, “but it’s good.”

“I didn’t know crying was good?” he raised an eyebrow at her.

She pulled him down to her in a kiss. “I’m just really, _really_ happy. I missed this. I missed you. I missed _us_.”

“Oh, okay. Happy tears?”

“Very. Very happy years,” she assured him as she smiled up at him.

They kissed a few moments longer, their mouths slowly moving together, neither wanting to break away. He finally pulled out of her and flipped them, her resting on his chest in the middle of the floor.

“You know,” he started. “I wasn’t happy before. I only looked happy these past few months because I thought _you_ were happy.” He ran a hand through her hair. “I just want you to have everything you could ever want, Kara.”

“I do now,” she sighed as she placed a kiss on his chest. “I just…I hope you can forgive me for how I acted. I’ll earn it…your forgiveness. Every day. I promise. But, we’re _both_ happy now, right?” He nodded and she sighed as she cuddled up against him, her head under his chin. “That’s what matters right now.”

“Yeah, we’ll work on that later. How you’ll just have to make it up to me…every day. For months. Maybe a year? I still have to decide what you’ll have to do for me…”

“Anything,” she said, looking up at him.

“Anything? Be careful, Kara. You’ll have to limit me,” he smirked down at her.

She grinned again his chest, but paused for a minute. “You know,” she started as they lay on the floor together, her head on his chest, her eyes directed at the corner of the room. “I forgot that there was a bed in that corner over there…”

“That’s why I asked about the floor. I was going to suggest that we move there, but you were _pretty_ eager…”

She scoffed at him as she tapped his cheek in a playful slap.

“How long do you think we’ll be stuck here?” He asked, his hand stroking through her blonde curls.

“I don’t know,” she shrugged against him. “Might be all night,” she sighed.

He grinned as he kissed the top of her head. “Doesn’t bother me. As long as I’m with you.” She looked up at him with a grin. “But if we’re gonna lie here naked all night, I might need a round two,” he smirked at her and she blushed as she shook her head with a smile.

“Insatiable,” she mumbled against his chest.

They lay naked in each other’s arms for a little over a half hour when finally they heard a voice through the door.

“Kara? Are you in there?”

“Alex?!” Kara called out as she lifted herself from Mon-El’s chest. “We’re saved!” she shouted excitedly as she sped into her Supergirl suit.

Alex’s laugh was heard loudly through the Nth metal door. “Did you get yourself stuck in there? Even after that _ridiculously boring_ instructional meeting we had?” They heard her tapping at the door. “I know it’s late, but I went by your place to check how you were doing after yesterday and you weren’t there. J’onn said the last he heard from you, you were headed to the bunker. Wait…what do you mean ‘we’re saved’?”

“Ugh, just put in your code, Alex,” she complained as she pressed the final number of her own code into the keypad near the door.

“Kara, wait no!” Mon-El called out as he scrambled to grab his boxers from the floor and cover himself.

She swung the door open before it had even occurred to him that she was opening it, his words not even fully having left his mouth before she did. Alex laughed at Kara when she saw her, her mouth opening to speak, but her jaw dropped when her eyes settled on Mon-El, blushing and naked, sitting on the rug in the middle of the floor save for his crumpled plaid boxers held covering his lap.

He cleared his throat with a small cough. “Hi, Alex. Thank you for freeing us…”

“Maybe I should have waited a little longer…” Alex trailed off as she took in Kara’s still clothed form.

Kara blushed. “No, Alex, we uh…it’s good,” she closed her eyes and shook her head with a small smile.

“So, I see you guys finally _talked_ …” Alex winked at her sister dramatically. “So, I’ll just leave you two to each other then,” she smirked as she turned to leave. Kara spun around to look at Mon-El.

“Sorry!” She cringed as she moved toward him, nodding at his naked form as he sat upright on the floor.

“Oh, by the way!” Alex spoke, her head peeking back into the doorframe. “I’m glad you two finally found your way back to each other,” she grinned as her eyes looked around the room. “I should have thought about locking you two in here _weeks_ ago. Good thing J’onn hasn’t gotten around to installing those security cameras yet. And you’ll both have to explain to him why he already needs a new rug for the bunker. Goodnight!”

Kara’s jaw dropped as Alex turned and left. She spun around. “Oh my gosh, I didn’t even think of cameras!”

Mon-El chuckled loudly as he stood and moved to slide his boxers back on. “Well, I sense no more bunker sex in our future, huh?”

“Uhm, no. Never,” she stated clearly as she walked toward him.

“Damn,” he chuckled. He wrapped his arms around her waist and smiled down at her. “I guess I could live without that. I mean...I guess we finally found our way back to each other huh? That’s more important. That’s all I need.”

“And sex. I’m sure you need sex.”

“Well, of course sex, Kara. Come on, that was implied,” he smirked down at her as she leaned in to kiss him. She pulled back slightly, out of the kiss, but only mere centimetres away.

“Can we go home now? Back to _our_ home…where we belong? I think I’m ready for round two.”

His eyes widened as a wide grin slid onto his face. “Yes ma’am.”

She giggled before she reached down to pick up his DEO uniform and threw it at him.

“Race you,” she said with a smirk before she bolted out of the room. He stood there with his clothes in his hands as he shook his head. _Gods, had he missed her._ He threw his clothes on quickly before racing after her.

It was gonna be a _long_ night.

 

 

_END._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay bunker sex! And our space puppies are together again! Some of you may think that it happened too easily, and some of you may think this took too long, but thank you for following me on this journey!
> 
> re: the comments from last chapter -- I love how so many of you commented on J’onn and Alex thinking up this idea and they might be watching and waiting. Literally nobody knows they’re in the bunker. Everyone’s gone home. And Mon-El really did purely accidentally lock them in the bunker. I love how I didn’t even THINK of having J’onn and/or Alex lock them in there -- I was so focused on Mon-El making a typical “Mon-El like” mistake to think of that. LOL
> 
> As promised, here is the original prompt I saw on Twitter (again, if this was your prompt, THANK YOU, please tell me who you are as I failed to save who wrote it):  
> Kara and Mon-El have been broken up for about nine months. Five of those months Mon-El was in a coma due to lead poisoning. When he woke up he still believed that he and Kara were together, but she had moved on. Well four months after that Mon-El is still in love with her and he's fine just being her friend. Kara's boyfriend realizes that she's not over Mon-El. He breaks up with her. Mon-El and Kara go out on a mission and she's being defensive towards him. They then get trapped in the bunker with no way out. So Kara has to finally deal with her feelings instead of pushing them away like she constantly does. It gets pretty steamy when all the emotions finally come out.
> 
> As I said before, this fic was completed before I started posting, and surprisingly, nothing actually changed during posting. Other than fixing some run on sentences, punctuation and spelling errors. You guys' guesses and questions were always so close to what was actually coming up in the plot. I'm so glad the story made sense to you all! LOL
> 
> Fun Fact: Kara's boyfriend was actually named Nathan for about six chapters before I changed it to Eric. Why? I have no idea.
> 
> Thanks again to everyone for reading (especially these long ass Author's Notes, my bad)! I hope to see you all at some future fics I write. I have a few completed already so it won't be long before I get another new one out to you guys.
> 
> Come find me on Twitter at @_ashleymaria_ . I love to chat all things KaraMel, Supergirl or any of my other fandoms we may share in common.
> 
> KaraMel Fandom Map can still be found at https://www.zeemaps.com/map?group=2594021 and we're over 100 pins now!
> 
> SENDING LOVE TO YOU ALL!! <3 <3


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